From Ashes
by allybz
Summary: Elsa has lived across the street from Scott McCall her entire life. It's only when weird and frankly unexplainable things start happening to her that the pair are truly thrown together. Will she finally get the boy who's been her lifelong crush or will new kid on the block Theo Raeken lead her astray?
1. Chapter 1

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuuuuuuuuuck I am so late." Elsa Kirsch spoke to her own reflection as she hastily applied a thin layer of mascara, pulling a truly obscene face as she did so – she'd never been particularly gifted in the art of being a girl. Once she was satisfied with the way she looked, or rather too fed up to carry on, she took a step back and frowned at her reflection in the full length mirror. Her jeans were ripped at the knees, her once white Converse were now weathered and greying and her blonde hair fell across her shoulders in messy waves. For a moment she considered changing into something that was at least freshly laundered, before deciding she really didn't care, after all she was only going to senior scribe and Elsa was fairly sure the dress code was 'casual'.

She patted down the pockets of her skinny jeans, making sure all the essentials were in place.

Phone? _Check._

Keys? _Check._

Ready to go.

Elsa bounded down the stairs two at a time, making sure to keep a tight grip on the railing as she went, no one wanted to turn up to the biggest event – after prom - of their senior year crippled as a result of their own god damn clumsiness. When both the blondes feet were planted firmly on the ground floor she glanced towards the kitchen, frowning when her gaze was not met with the image of Shane raiding the fridge for whatever she could get her hands on.

"Shane?" Elsa called out.

"She already left älskling. Oliver picked her up when you were in the shower." The voice of her mother floated from the TV room, Elsa followed it, poking her head through the door way and smiled at her mother.

Lisa Kirsch really was a sight to behold, a true Scandinavian beauty who was at least 6'4" in heels, with brilliantly blonde hair and icy blue eyes. Elsa's mom had been born and raised in Malmo, Sweden where she'd had a brief career as a model before falling pregnant by Elsa's scumbag photographer father and moving to Beacon Hills of all places to 'get away from it all'.

"It was kind of them to wait for me." Elsa muttered a response, making a mental note to freeze Shane out for all of three seconds when she next saw her. Shane Campbell was Elsa's best friend turned surrogate sister. She'd moved in with the Kirsch's - a family made of up Elsa, her mom and her mom's weird older brother Viktor – when her own mom had moved away from Beacon Hills. Shane had point blank refused to be separated from her best friend, and so the arrangement was made that she would simply move in with her instead.

"Oliver said something about traffic or the weather…" Lisa's voice trailed off as the television stole her attention away from her only child. Elsa raised an eyebrow; clearly 'My Dream Home' was more important than her.

It was the flickering of the lights that drew Elsa's attention to the weather outside, and she moved across the room, stopping by the window and staring open mouthed out into the street that at present looked more like that hell mouth than the height of suburban living. She groaned as she turned from the window back towards her mother, pouting her bottom lip out gently. "Mama…" It had been a long time since Elsa Kirsch called her mother by this particular name, and Lisa knew that it was one her daughter used only when she wanted something.

"Drew and Johnathon are about to show Kirsty and Pete what their dream home could look like." Lisa stated simply, as though that were reason enough for Elsa not to interrupt her further.

"But Mama look at the rain, will you please drive me to school?"

Lisa picked up the empty wineglass from the table her long legs had been resting on and tapped it gently. "Ask your uncle hjärtat."

"Don't sweetheart me, I know where your loyalties lie mother." She sent a mock glare in her mother's direction before disappearing out of the room in search of Viktor.

Viktor Kirsch was the literal embodiment of the stereotypical weird uncle. He'd moved to America when Elsa was eight and moved into the basement where he'd opened his own apothecary and yoga studio and spent the majority of his days wearing very little and burning incense.

"Viktor?" The blondes voice was quiet as she knocked on the door to the basement, after some shuffling and the knocking over of god knows what the eccentric man pulled open the door and beamed up at his niece. "Could you give me a lift to the school?" She asked, wrinkling her nose as the overwhelming scent of lavender incense invaded her nostrils.

Viktor Kirsch blinked slowly at his niece, mulling over her words before simply shaking his head. "It's not in the stars pussgurka, not tonight. There are other forces at work tonight."

Elsa sighed heavily and raised a shaped brow. "What does that even mean? ...and did you just call me a kiss cucumber? Is that supposed to be endearing? What kind of freaky incense are you really burning down there Vik?"

Viktor closed the door to the basement without another word and Elsa blew air into her cheeks in frustration. She was going to have to take her bike, in the pouring rain. Fuck her father for not giving into her guilt trip and buying her a car for her last birthday and fuck Oliver for having too much of a crush on Shane to think to wait for his other best friend to finish showering – an act that would be made completely obsolete the moment she stepped out the front door and into the rain.

She was soaked through by the time she'd dragged her bike out of the garage, and was stood on the sidewalk doing her very best to pull the pink tassels from the handlebars when a familiar voice caused her to look up, water dripping down her nose and scowl set firmly upon her features.

"Are you going to senior scribe?" It asked, and Elsa had to physically stop herself from rolling her eyes.

"Me? Oh no…I just figured a rainstorm was the ideal time to film another episode of pimp my bicycle for my YouTube channel."

Scott McCall shielded his head from the rain with his jacket and blinked his chocolate orbs at the blonde. He was quiet for a moment, unsure whether or not she was being serious.

"Uh…well I was just going to ask if you wanted a lift?" He gestured towards the blue jeep parked on the other side of the street, Stiles Stilinski waved from the driver's seat.

Elsa ran her hands through her dripping wet hair and laughed softly. "Oh…please, yeah, yes please I mean. Thank you. I'm sorry for being an ass." The crush she'd harboured for Scott McCall since she was nine years old caused her to stumble over her words.

Scott shook his head and moved his arm in a silent offering for her to take shelter underneath his jacket with him. "Do you want to bring it?" He asked with a smile.

"Bring what?"

"The bike…or the tassels at least."

"Oh god no, screw the bike." Elsa kicked the bike to the curb with a little more enthusiasm than necessary and moved to stand under the shelter of Scott's jacket.

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys, it's me again starting another new fic because I'm the worst human on earth. This has been a while in the making, and after much persuasion from people on tumblr who had already taken a liking to Elsa (for whatever crazy reason) I finally decided to try out a fic for her. This first chapter is just to test the waters...make sure you guys like the sound of it, and that I'm actually capable of writing Elsa as a character. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter, sorry it's so short! Please leave a review if you've got the time. ++ head over to my tumblr (lydamartin) to find TONNES more on Elsa, there's some pretty fun edits over there so I definitely suggest you go check them out and get to know Elsa better!**


	2. Chapter 2

Scott was warm, so much so that Elsa could feel the warmth radiating from his body as she walked alongside him towards the Jeep. Far in the back of her mind she wondered how a person could possibly deal with being so naturally warm, surely it was a hindrance at times, especially when trying to get to sleep – she hated being too warm in bed.

"Elsa?" Scott asked, dragging the blonde from deep within her own mind just as they neared the Jeep.

"Mmm?" She mumbled quietly in reply, desperately trying to focus on what it was he was saying and not the smell of his cologne which was rapidly invading her senses, making her feel lightheaded.

"I asked where your friends were…Shane? Oliver?"

"Oh those assholes." Elsa's words were said in jest, something made evident by the beaming grin that lit up her face as the mere mention of her two very best friends. "They ditched me while I was in the shower. Oliver is too in love with Shane to remember that I also exist it would appear."

Scott pulled the passenger door of the jeep open and moved to let Elsa clamber into the back before climbing into the front seat himself. "Well it's a good job we spotted you at the side of the road."

"My heroes…" Elsa mused and beside her Liam Dunbar sniggered. She hadn't even noticed him when she'd climbed into the Jeep and she failed to hide the look of confusion that flashed upon her features at the sight of him. She'd seen Scott and his friends hanging out with Liam Dunbar quite a bit in the past year or so, and although she found the age difference between them a little odd she also liked the fact that Scott clearly didn't care what people thought when it came to who he chose to be friends with.

"So Kirsch…" Stiles twisted his body in the driver's seat so that he was looking directly at her. "How's your mom?" He smirked, one that caused his chocolate brown eyes to sparkle mischievously and his eyebrows to wiggle suggestively.

Elsa rolled her oceanic orbs and cocked her head to the side. For as long as she could remember the boys at her school had lusted after her mom, Stiles Stilinski especially, there had even been a time three or so years ago that he'd followed Elsa around the hallways singing his own version of 'Stacy's Mom' by Fountains of Wayne purely because he knew just how much it irritated the blonde.

"She's brilliant, how's your girlfriend?"

Stiles' eyes narrowed at her and his head jerked as he spoke. "Touché." He muttered as he turned back towards the steering wheel, turning the keys in the ignition and attempting to start the car.

"Has she heard yet?" Scott asked quietly, ignoring Stiles' frustration when the Jeep failed to start not once, but twice.

"Tonight, she finds out tonight." Stiles replied, closing his eyes and pursing his lips as he turned the key in the ignition once again. It appeared that third time was the charm and this time the engine turned over, bringing the Jeep to life.

"Finds out what?" Elsa piped up, leaning forward from the backseat, resting her elbows on Scott and Stiles' seats up front.

"That's none of your busi-.."

"Finds out if she got into senior year." Liam cut Stiles off midsentence and the older boy glared at him in the rear-view mirror.

"Thank you Liam." Sarcasm laced Stiles' tones and Elsa shot Liam an amused glance as she settled back into her seat.

"I'm sure she'll be fine." She replied quickly, a genuine comment rather than an afterthought.

For the next few minutes the car journey was silent and Elsa turned to watching the heavy rain out of the window and listening to the storm. It was only when Scott and Stiles began talking about a topic that she'd been somewhat invested in over recent months that her ears pricked up and she redirected her attention from the weather outside.

"So what's happening with Kira?"

"She gets back in town tonight actually."

"…and have you guys spoke, you know, about…"

"The breakup?"

"Mmmhmm…" Stiles never once took his eyes off the road as he drove, and Scott's eyes were directed down at his hands, neither one of them noticed Elsa – and Liam – eavesdropping in the backseat.

"Nope."

"So it's still on then, New York hasn't changed anything?"

"If anything her going to New York made me realise that this is what we both needed, it wasn't right we depended on each other too much…" Scott sighed heavily and leant his head back on the headrest. Behind him Elsa fidgeted awkwardly in her seat, not entirely sure that this was the kind of conversation she should so openly be listening to.

"She's still a part of the pack though right?" Liam cut into yet another conversation and Scott glanced over his shoulder towards the younger boy with a smile.

"Yeah, always."

"You guys call yourself the pack?" Elsa teased, her blonde brows rising up her forehead ever so slightly in amusement. Liam's mouth fell open and Stiles watched her cautiously in the rear-view mirror as he drove.

"The wolf pack yeah…you know like in The Hangover movie?" Scott explained, and despite the fact she didn't completely believe him she nodded her head regardless.

"For sure, me Oli and Shane call ourselves the Potato Commodores so really who am I to judge…"

Each one of the boys turned to face her at this point - Stiles only doing so after stopping at a red light – their expressions ones of sheer amusement, laced with just a hint of confusion. Elsa merely laughed, giving a light shrug.

The remainder of the journey to the school was relatively uneventful, they picked Malia up on the way and she spent most of the drive glaring at the back of Stiles' head, angry at him for telling Liam about her struggling at school, and furious that Liam had told Elsa who was a girl that Malia barely even knew let alone was friends with. Elsa had assured her that she'd be successful and the pair had spent the rest of the journey discussing Malia's new haircut – one Elsa very much approved of. When they arrived at the high school they piled out one by one, each of them hurrying for cover from the relentless rain, Elsa thanked Stiles for the ride, said a final 'good luck' to Malia and flashed Scott a quick smile and a wave before disappearing in search of Shane and Oliver.

"What the hell is this Else?" Shane had spotted Elsa long before the blonde had caught sight of her, and stood under the veranda with arms folded and a perfectly shaped eyebrow kinked. "Was that Scott McCall, also known as the love of your life, whose car you just got out of?"

"No."

"No?"

"That was Stiles Stilinski's car." Elsa raised her eyebrows and shot Shane a smug look, her best friend merely rolled her eyes in return and linked her arm through Elsa's.

"Whatever, you can tell me everything later Oliver's waiting inside." Elsa raised a brow, the only people that called Oli by his full name tended to usually be over the age of twenty five at the very least.

"Oh well we best not keep _Oliver_ waiting."

"Shut up." Shane tried to hide the small smile that danced on her blossom pink lips at the mention of Oli's name – she'd never admit to it, but Elsa knew that Shane liked him just as much as he liked her.

The pair stepped arm in arm through the double entrance doors and into the main hallway. Beacon Hills High school was perhaps even more depressing in the night time than it was in the cold light of day. Despite the promised maintenance work over the summer the majority of the lockers remained dented or damaged in some way, many of them missing doors and a couple marked with deep almost animalistic scratches. Elsa frowned as she walked the hallway with Shane, who too was uncharacteristically silent.

"Senior year." Shane finally breathed out as they reached the library, discovering the rest of the student body, some of whom were chatting amongst themselves on the lower levels; others were stood patiently in a long queue that led up the steps and in amongst the bookshelves.

"Well you two took your time." Oliver Blackwood teased as he strolled towards the pair. Oliver was Elsa's oldest friend – aside from Shane – he was the first person she'd sat next to in kindergarten and someone she honestly couldn't imagine her life without. She'd watched Oli Blackwood change from the awkward nerdy kid with glasses, to the traditionally handsome high school jock that stood before her today, if she didn't think of him as more of a brother than a friend she probably would've described him as being handsome, if you're into that effortlessly beautiful kind of look.

"Elsa was busy making new friends without us." Shane directed a knowing look towards Elsa who simply rolled her blue eyes.

"I'd hardly call Scott McCall a new friend Shane, he's lived across the street from me my entire life."

"…and yet today is the first time I've ever actually seen you speaking to him."

"Yeah well…" Elsa started her sentence with every intention of finishing with a valid point, but when she couldn't come up with anything she simply admitted defeat with a shrug. "…I got nothing."

"Exactly. Now let's forget about boy next door Scott McCall and let's focus of the task at hand. Senior scribe! I want to document every moment of this." Shane unlinked her arm from Elsa's and moved to stand beside Oliver who visibly lit up at the prospect of standing so close to the brunette. "Else can you take our picture?"

An exaggerated sigh fell from Elsa's pale pink lips but she smiled nonetheless, patting the pockets of her still soaked through skinny jeans in search of her phone. She checked the front and back pockets three times, and the pockets of her jacket twice before finally settling on the fact that no, she didn't have her phone. "Fuck." She muttered. Shane frowned and handed the blonde her own. The trio took a number of photographs together, some nice, some the complete and utter opposite of nice that would absolutely never been seen by anyone outside of the inner triangle (unless being used for blackmail purposes) and then, once satisfied that they had documented this truly monumental time in their life accordingly they joined the end of the seemingly endless queue that led up to the bookshelves.

"I think I left it in the car." Elsa thought aloud, leaning against a table top and staring up at the tiled ceiling. She'd served a detention in the library once and counted how many of the small tiles were up there, around one thousand six hundred and eighty if she could remember correctly.

"Your cell?" Oliver asked, craning his neck to see what it was Elsa was staring at before looking away disappointedly when it was nothing but the ceiling.

"Yeah, in fact I'm gonna run out and see if I can find Stilinski and have a look. Save my space in line?"

She didn't even wait to find out whether her friends had agreed to her request, she didn't doubt that they would have said no and then saved her a space anyways, and so with that in mind she turned on her heel and sprinted out the door. Her converse squelched as they came into contact with the ground, saturated from the rain and moulding rather uncomfortably to the shape of Elsa's foot more and more with each step she took. Elsa scanned each corridor as she hurried through them, looking for the familiar face of Stiles, or any of his friends that might be able to let her into his Jeep – she really couldn't afford to straight up lose another phone. Despite her searching she discovered only a few straggling students, some of whom were simply late and others that had skulked off into a dark corner together for one last fling before summer was officially over. Shuddering at the sight of Greenberg and one of the girls she knew to be on the soccer team, Elsa pushed open the double doors that led out to the parking lot and braced herself for the onslaught of relentless rain.

Already completely soaked to the bone Elsa didn't even feel the rain as it lashed down upon her, causing the soft curls of her hair to fall flat and stick to her face in wet strands, the grey t-shirt she was wearing now looked more like black and clung tightly to her torso, sticking uncomfortably whenever she moved. When she didn't find Stiles at his car on the far side of the parking lot she had to physically restrain herself from lashing out in irritation and kicking the old Jeep as hard as she could, instead she leant against the hood, shivering and cold.

"SCOTT!"

Elsa's head whipped to the side and in the direction that Stiles Stilinski's voice had come from. A small part of her screamed inwardly, ordering her to go back inside and to sign the god damn bookcase like she had come here in the _pouring rain_ to do, but another much stronger part of her urged her forward, to follow the sound of Stiles' voice and to make sure that Scott was okay. The petite blonde took off at a pace her gym teacher would truly be proud of, running towards the underpass at the opposite side of the parking lot. She didn't know what she was going to find when she reached Stiles, but what she did find was unlike anything she had ever seen before in her life.

A shirtless man stood towering over Scott McCall, his skin a darkish blue and some indescribable black liquid oozing from pretty much every orifice of his body. Elsa skidded to a halt practically running into the back of Stiles, who frankly, didn't look anywhere near as surprised as she expected him too – in fact he looked more pissed off than anything else. "What the fuck is happening?" Elsa shouted her voice almost drowned out by the sound of the rain.

For the first time since she'd skidded over people turned and noticed her presence, Stiles and Malia exchanged a worried glance, Kira – who had arrived god knows when – glanced down at the sword she was carrying and Scott whose canines were elongated and eyes were burning a brilliant red did his very best to smile as the man thrust a clawed hand deep into his chest.

Elsa lunged forward, only to be stopped by Stiles who grabbed hold of her wrist. "Stiles let go of me we've got to help him!" Her words caused the Stilinski boys grip only to tighten and no matter how hard she fought to free herself, to run towards Scott, she couldn't.

An adrenaline fuelled rage like nothing Elsa had ever felt before bubbled up inside of her, her breathed slowed exponentially and she stopped pulling from Stiles grasp. She could no longer feel the dampness of her wet clothes against her skin or the cold of the rain and wind all she felt was an odd sense of calm, warm and serene. With a sudden yelp Stiles dropped Elsa's wrist from his grasp and clutched his hand against his chest, the blonde glanced over her shoulder towards him and Stiles mouth fell open when his own chocolate brown orbs locked onto not the icy blue he was expecting but a fiery orange.

"You burnt me!" His tone was accusing and Elsa frowned at him, not quite able to believe how Stiles was able to stand and make ridiculous accusations when his best friend was pretty much dying about ten feet away from them. "Elsa…you're on fire."

The moment he mentioned it, the odd sense of calm she had felt quickly washed away in its place was a burning heat, one that caused every inch of her skin to feel tight and as though it were in within an inch of cracking and peeling away. She brought her hands up in front of her face and just as he had said; her hands were engulfed in red hot flames. Elsa's eyes widened and she shook her hands vigorously in a desperate attempt to put the fire out, she didn't know much about spontaneous combustion but she figured that this was probably it.

"Oh my god!" She yelled as she waved her hands in front of her, doing everything in her power to distinguish the flames. As she shook, a rogue ball of flames peeled off from the ends of her fingertips and launched itself towards the thing that looked set to murder Scott. Hitting the creature square in the chest it gave Scott just enough time gain the upper hand and quickly put an end to the fight.

Elsa didn't notice the fight end, or the man leave, every ounce of her attention was fixated firmly on the searing pain in her hands and the flames that licked their way up her arms, charring the sleeves of her t-shirt as they went.

"Elsa you have to calm down." Scott was suddenly by her side, genuine concern ghosting across his handsome features as he watched Elsa scream in pain.

"Calm down?" She repeated incredulously "I'd like to see you fucking calm down when you're on fire Scott!"

"It will help you control it." His voice was unnervingly calm and it only served to stress Elsa out even more, why was he so okay with this? Why were all of them so okay with this? Some guy had literally just tried to murder Scott and everyone was acting as though this were simply another day in the life, like it happened all the time.

"I can't control it Scott its _fire_."

Before she could even properly finish her sentence the sense of calm returned, the searing pain in her hands and arms slowly ebbed away until there was nothing and the flames that had erupted from the palms of her hands disappeared. Her eyes, now back to their usual icy blue, flickered from her amazingly unscathed limbs to her hands which were grasped tightly in the hands of another person, someone she hadn't even realised was there and someone she wasn't sure she'd ever seen in her entire life. His thumbs stroked gently over the palms of her hands and his touch send shockwaves throughout her entire body, his face definitely wasn't bad to look at either.

Elsa Kirsch's stomach was doing backflips, and she open and closed her mouth multiple times to thank him, but no words came out.

"You don't remember me do you?" His words were directed to the group of students as a whole, but his hands kept a tight hold of Elsa's who remained uncharacteristically silent. "I guess I look a little different since the fourth grade…"

"Theo?" Scott questioned, earning himself a smile from the boy who nodded.

"You know him?" Malia piped up.

"He used to" Theo explained, flashing yet another devilishly handsome smile that made Elsa's knees feel weak. "Trust me I never thought I'd see you guys again, but a couple of months ago I heard about and Alpha in Beacon Hills. When I found out his name was Scott McCall I just couldn't believe it. Not just an Alpha, but a true Alpha."

"What do you want?" Scott spoke again.

"To come back to Beacon Hills, back home with my family, cause I want to be a part of your pack."

Scott, Kira, Stiles and Malia stared dumbfounded at Theo Raeken who never once dropped Elsa's hands from his own and for a long time everyone was silent.

"I think I'm going to vomit." Elsa announced suddenly, he knees giving way beneath her.

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys! First of all I just want to thank you for the _overwhelming_ response to the first chapter of From Ashes. Nineteen reviews on a chapter that wasn't even 2,000 words long has absolutely blown my mind + the vast majority of them were super positive so thank you so so so much for that! Anyways here's chapter 2, thankfully a little longer than the last. I mostly wanted to set the basis for some relationships + obviously introduce some characters that are going to play big parts in the rest of the story. As usual I hope you enjoy it and if you get the chance to review please do cause they honestly make my day! Thank you so much again guys + if you want to see more of Elsa head over to my tumblr (lydamartin) where there's tonnes of edits/headcanons/gifsets in the 'Elsa Kirsch' tag! **


	3. Chapter 3

Elsa didn't faint and she didn't vomit either despite thinking that she was definitely going to. Instead she crouched down on the floor, her eyes wide, staring at the palms of her hands – which Theo had reluctantly let go of as she moved to the floor - trying to get her head around the fact that they were completely unscathed. Beside her Stiles scratched the back of his head as he paced back and forth, this wasn't the first time someone had found out about the pack, but that didn't make dealing with the exposure any easier.

"I still can't get hold of Lydia." He muttered as he walked, if she hadn't been in a near catatonic state of shock Elsa probably would've ordered him to stop fidgeting around so much, it was really annoying. "We should probably go inside and find her."

"We can't just leave Elsa." Scott interjected his tone forceful and his eyes serious. The whole pack, with the addition of Theo Raeken, were stood in a circle around the petite blonde, everyone staring down at her, unsure of what to do.

"Well we can't just stay out here either." Stiles replied with a frown, finally stopping in one spot and folding his arms across his chest.

Scott dropped to his knees, bringing himself down to Elsa's eyelevel. "Hey…" He reached out a hand, gently taking hold of her forearm, which Elsa promptly snatched away from his grip, her eyes wide and fearful; she didn't want to hurt him. "Elsa it's okay. _You're_ okay."

She hated this; she hated the look of pity in his eyes and the way he spoke to her like she was nothing more than a child. Elsa Kirsch had wanted to be on Scott McCall's radar for years, but not like this. Breathing out slow and heavy she got to her feet, her azure eyes narrowing slightly as everyone took a tentative step away from her as she did so.

"So…" She began, running a hand through her hair which had long since been matted by the rain. "I just set on fire. That is a thing that just happened….and you guys? Well you're all totally okay with it. Which is great, except it's not because you should be freaking out, but you're not, which is kind of making _me_ freak out."

Her words tumbled from her blossom pink lips with barely a breath between them and around her looks of confusion etched themselves onto the faces of her classmates.

"That was really fast." Malia blinked slowly as she spoke.

Elsa rolled her eyes. "Yeah well, you know what else was fast? Me. Setting on fire. Spontaneously combusting if you will, lighting up like the fucking fourth of July."

"That's a little bit of an exaggeration." Malia raised a shaped brow, and Stiles groaned inwardly at how insensitive and direct his girlfriend was capable of being.

"I'm Scandinavian!" Elsa exclaimed loudly. "Fire isn't my thing, I am suited to snow and ice and the cold…this is all, it's just wrong."

"There's a _Frozen_ joke in there somewhere." Stiles mused, unable to hide the smirk that danced upon his lips, though it quickly disappeared when he caught sight of the death stare Elsa had thrown in his direction.

"I dare you to tell me to _'let it go'_ Stilinski I really do."

A low growl emitted from somewhere deep inside Malia as she picked up on Elsa's threatening tone, her eyes flashed a brilliant blue and she bared her teeth ever so slightly.

"Okay well I think everyone's had a bit too much excitement for tonight." Theo stepped forward, blocking Malia from Elsa's view, his own gaze locking onto the blondes. "Shouldn't you be getting back to Shane and Oliver?" He said, raising his eyebrows as he spoke, his words sounding more like an order than a question.

Elsa blinked up at him, this gorgeous boy, made even more delectable by the raindrops that glistened as they slid down his chiselled features. "How do you know about Shane?" She challenged once she'd snapped out of a vivid daydream that included Theo with substantially less clothing than he was currently sporting.

The boy faltered before clearing his throat and speaking confidently. "You've been friends with her and Oli your whole life…I remember you three being inseparable when we were kids. I just…assumed you'd stayed close."

Elsa raised a brow, there was something off about Theo, something she couldn't quite put her finger on, something unnerving that was made even more so by his devilish good looks and the fact that he – unlike most boys of above average appearance – was actually acknowledging her existence. "Well I mean you're right. But that was still creepy as hell so please refrain from any assumptions from now on."

Theo nodded once, before looking down at his feet but not before Elsa caught the small smile that flourished upon his lips – god he was handsome.

The pack talked quietly amongst themselves for a few more moments, Scott agreed to meet with Elsa the next day to help her figure out whatever the hell just happened to her and Elsa did her very best to contain just how excited she was at the prospect of spending even a minimal amount of time alone with Scott McCall. Eventually Stiles made the point that they really couldn't keep Lydia waiting much longer without getting in contact and they all headed back into the school, followed by Elsa who was in turn followed by Theo.

By the time Elsa got back to the library Shane and Oliver were two from the front of the line, apologising as she went she shuffled past the throngs of students, not bothering to glance at Scott and the pack, who'd joined the very end of the queue, and did her very best to smile once reunited with her friends. Behind her Greenberg made a noise, one Elsa supposed was supposed to be of annoyance at her cutting in line but what sounded more to her like a dying elephant. Glancing over her shoulder she frowned at him. "Don't make me tell people about the disaster of 2011 Greenberg." She threatened, somehow managing to look as innocent as ever as she did so.

"I can't believe I dated her." The lacrosse player muttered as he turned back to his friends.

"Likewise." Elsa responded before finally turning back to Shane and Oliver.

"Did you find it?" Oli asked, making a mental note of Elsa's somewhat dishevelled appearance but choosing not to comment on it.

"Find what?"

"Your cell you idiot." Shane replied quickly, reaching out a hand and running her fingertips of the charred remains of the sleeves of Elsa's t-shirt. "What the fuck happened to you?" The brunette questioned, narrowing her eyes and giving a look that told Elsa not to dare trying to lie to her – she'd know.

"It's a long story."

"My fault actually." The tenors of Theo Raeken were instantly recognised by Elsa who jumped at the sound of his voice as he appeared silently behind her.

Shane raised a dark brow and leant against the bookshelf she was stood in front of. Her dark chocolate brown orbs dragged appreciatively over Theo's admittedly impressive physique and she cocked her head to the side. "Elsa I'm not finished with you, but I'll postpone the inquisition on account of…" She pointed an index finger in Theo's direction. "Distractions in court."

Theo smirked and Elsa rolled her eyes as she turned away. Shane pushed off the bookshelf and linked her arm through her best friends. Grinning as the two girls signed their initials on the shelf in front of them. Neither one of them said a word, but an entire conversation was had with facial expressions alone.

* * *

Shane, Oliver and Elsa made their way to the diner that Shane used to work in after everyone left the library – it had unofficially become their 'hangout' the day Shane quit, something about being on the right side of the counter and how it made her feel powerful, Elsa wasn't really sure but she did know that they did the best banana milkshakes in town .Theo had long since disappeared, much to Shane's disappointment as she'd been gearing up to challenge him to an 'ab off' or any other competition that would result in the loss of his shirt. The trio spent the night talking and laughing and Elsa did her very best to put the evenings of the parking lot to the back of her mind, she didn't doubt that she'd tell Shane everything the moment they were alone together, but something told her that what she'd witnessed, what had happened to her tonight, wasn't something Oliver Blackwood was up to hearing, not tonight at least.

After Oli dropped the girls back home, they waved his Ford off into the distance before turning and stepping into the house. Elsa kicked off her converse and Shane closed the door behind them, making a conscious effort to do so as quietly as possible as not to wake Viktor or Elsa's mom. The second the front door was closed and locked Shane spun on the heel of her boot and folded her arms tightly across her chest.

"So are you going to tell me what the hell happened to you tonight?" She asked, her eyebrows shooting up her head accusingly. "I mean first you arrive with Scott McCall which is like your dream come true and then Theo McDreamy walks you into the library and as if two encounters with extremely good looking boys wasn't enough…I'm about eighty three percent sure you somehow set your shirt on fire in the time between leaving me and Oliver in the library and going to look for your cell. Which by the way you never found so congrats on that too."

Elsa ran her hands down her face in exasperation before frowning at Shane. "First of all, two extremely good looking boys wanting to be in my presence isn't that farfetched." She began, smiling a little when Shane laughed silently. "…and second, can we please discuss this in bed I've had a super crazy night and I want to tell you everything but also my blankets are calling me."

Shane rolled her eyes and took a hold of Elsa's outstretched hand, dragging the shorter blonde up the stairs and into her bedroom. "And you really need to brush your hair."

"And I need to brush my hair." Elsa agreed as she closed the bedroom door behind them.

When Shane had moved in with the Kirsch's it had been made clear that each girl would have her own bedroom, and that they were only allowed to have 'sleepovers' on weekends, of course Lisa Kirsch's house rules had been scrapped about thirty seconds into Shane moving in her last box and the pair had shared a bed, staying up until all hours talking and laughing, pretty much every night since Shane Campbell had moved in. Tonight was no different. The pair changed into their pyjamas and climbed underneath the multitude of blankets strewn across Elsa's bed, settling down next to each other before turning off the light and staring out into the pitch blackness.

Elsa poured her heart out, told Shane everything about what had happened that night. The man attacking Scott, Kira wielding a sword, Scott's crazy coloured eyes, Elsa spontaneously becoming the most flammable thing in existence, Theo calming her down, and how everyone was completely okay with it.

Much to the blondes surprise Shane didn't interrupt her once, instead she threaded her fingers gently through the matted mess that was Elsa's hair. Muttering the odd 'mmhmm' and 'and then what' at appropriate moments but otherwise keeping her opinions to herself until Elsa was finished. Straining in the dark to gage the expression on her best friends face Elsa turned to glance up at Shane, who dropped the strands of Elsa's hair she'd been plaiting when the blonde shifted her head.

"Do you believe me?"

"Of course I believe you." Shane replied thoughtfully, picking up the ends of Elsa's hair once more.

"So…if you can make fire or heat or whatever." She spun a strand of blonde hair around her index finger. "Does that mean you could curl your own hair with your hands?"

Elsa groaned, grabbing the nearest pillow to her and doing the very best she could so smack Shane across the head with it.

"Hey!" Shane whisper yelled. "I'm just being practical here, think of the savings to our electricity bills, Elsa Kirsch you're a goddamn gift."

They laughed, talked a little more and Elsa thanked the girl who may as well have been her sister for believing her before the pair of them fell asleep.

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys, thank you so much for all the reviews/follows/favourites and all the messages I continually receive on tumblr about Elsa. I honestly can't say enough how thankful I am for the support I'm receiving for this story. It's honestly blowing me away. Anyways, here is chapter 3 finishing up Episode 1 of Season 5. I hope you enjoyed it. Head over to my tumblr (lydamartin) for more Elsa headcanons/edits and shipping wars - kirken vs. elscott is slowly but surely ruining my life. As usual if you have the time or if you want to, please leave a review as they honestly motivate me so much! Thank you again!**


	4. Chapter 4

By the time Elsa's alarm – Get Low by Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz – blasted out of her phone and dragged the blonde reluctantly back to the land of the living Shane was long gone, disappeared into the small bathroom that joined the two girl's bedrooms. For a long sleepy moment as she stretched out her stiff limbs and yawned into the back of her hand Elsa wondered whether the night before had all been a dream, that was until her cerulean gaze settled upon the charred remains of the t-shirt she'd been wearing yesterday and she let out a long, slow breath. Her life – which she'd prided on being decidedly average – was about to get a whole lot more interesting, and it couldn't have come at a worse time. This was her senior year; she couldn't be worrying about spontaneously setting on fire she had college applications to be thinking about.

Happy in the notion that Shane was still in the shower and probably couldn't hear her, Elsa clambered out of bed bobbing her head and singing along to the song that still rang out of the small speakers of her iPhone. In front of her closet she sifted through various items of clothing, wiggling her hips as she did so.

"Stop, now wiggle with it." She sang lightly under her breath, her dancing becoming somewhat more vigorous as the song progressed. She stopped only when she spun on one foot and was greeted with the smirking face of her best friend who stood towel drying her hair in the doorway to the bathroom.

"Well it's good to see last night hasn't changed you completely." Shane mused, dipping into the bathroom to retrieve her toothbrush before popping her head back out the door with a grin. "You're still a fucking idiot."

Ignoring her best friend's comment Elsa moved to stand in front of the full length mirror that hung on her wall, holding various outfits against her body in an attempt to decide what to wear today. It was completely uncharacteristic of her to be doing to, and Shane raised an eyebrow, normally Elsa fell half asleep into her closet and put on the first thing her barely awake limbs could get a hold of, in fact Shane couldn't remember the last time the girl wore matching socks let alone a matching outfit.

"So…" Elsa began, tossing aside a pair of denim overalls and settling on her trusty ripped black jeans instead. "Scott has a thing at the vets this morning, but then he said he'd give us a ride to school if we wanted?"

"Doesn't Scott ride a motorbike, I really don't see all three of us fitting on one of those. I mean I know we're close E but…"

"A ride in Stiles jeep." Elsa explained, side stepping around Shane and ducking into the bathroom herself. "Unless you're going with Oli?"

Shane rolled her eyes. "Oli had early practice this morning actually, so yeah a ride with Scott McCutie and Bitchlinski sounds good. Better than walking with your lazy ass anyways."

"You know you should be nicer to him, he used to have such a huge crush on you."

Shane pursed her lips but did not say anything, instead she ran her tongue along her the top row of her freshly cleaned teeth and offered Elsa a grin before throwing her toothbrush back into the holder and exiting the room all together.

Elsa showered, got dressed and made her look as socially acceptable as she was physically able before heading down the stairs two at a time and straight into the kitchen where Shane was nursing a mug of coffee and staring at Viktor Kirsch with a look of pure confusion.

"It's just constant Swedish in this house." Shane muttered as Elsa entered the room, moving to pour her best friend a coffee and handing it to the blonde.

"Astonishing really, it's not like you moved in with a Swedish family or anything?" Elsa took a sip of the coffee and wiggled her eyebrows. Shane had to physically stop herself from hurling a bagel in her best friends direction.

It was as though the sound of his niece's voice brought Viktor back down to earth and he immediately stopped his mindless rambling, turning to Elsa with a rather flamboyant twirl of the makeshift loincloth he'd decided to wear this morning.

"Last night." He stated, speaking in fractured English for the benefit of Shane. "The stars had big plans. Did they come to fruition?" Elsa's mind wandered back to the brief conversation she'd had with her uncle before she'd even left the house last night – something told her Viktor Kirsch knew a lot more than she had previously given him credit for.

"I guess you could say that…" The blonde mused; behind her Shane sniggered into her bowl of Lucky Charms.

"Oh hjärtat, it is time." With those final words Viktor Kirsch disappeared out of the kitchen and back into the basement in a flurry of long blonde hair and flailing loincloth.

"Time we checked him into Eichen." Shane piped up, shrugging when Elsa frowned at her suggestion.

"I think he knows something."

"Well _I think_ he's burned one too many of those funky incense sticks."

Ignoring her best friends comment about the sanity of her uncle Elsa leaned across the marble worktop of the island that filled the centre of the Kirsch family kitchen, grabbing a bagel from the pile and taking a bite. Glancing at the large clock that hung on the wall opposite the window she grinned and with a quick nod of her head she silently motioned for Shane to get her ass up and ready. "The boys will be outside by now." She mumbled, a mouthful of half chewed bagel muffling her words. Shane pulled a face and Elsa stuck out her tongue, giving the brunette a better view of her breakfast.

"Why McCall hasn't fallen for you yet is completely beyond me. You're simply charming E."

Stiles' blue Jeep was parked up outside the McCall house four doors down from the house Elsa and Shane emerged from. Both girls grumbled irritably about the brightness of the sun and how it was still far too early in the day to actually be out of bed as they walked – arms linked instinctively – towards the car. For as long as she could remember Stiles had had the blue jeep, even before he'd received his drivers permit it had sat on his drive, waiting for him. The boy adored the blue tin can on wheels, and Elsa herself had to admit that its vintage look was somewhat appealing.

As the girls climbed into the back seats Scott and Stiles gave them all of two seconds to get comfortable before they twisted in their chairs to face them. Serious expressions etched upon their handsome faces. Shane raised a brow.

"Good morning to you too." The brunette muttered, narrowing her eyes ever so slightly and frowning at Stiles who was staring at her with the look of a boy crazed.

"How are you feeling today?" Scott spoke whilst Shane and Stiles glared at one another. Elsa merely shrugged a response. Not really sure how to answer him. She didn't feel like she was about to burst into flames and set Stiles Jeep on fire, but she did feel different to how she'd felt yesterday morning, and she was pretty sure she was running a fever.

"Did you tell her?" Stiles this time, giving a quick nod towards Shane who opened her mouth to snap back that 'her' had a name, but Elsa spoke before she got a chance to.

"Of course I told her."

Shane folded her arms across her chest and nodded, a smug smile causing the corners of her blossom pink lips to curve upwards ever so slightly. Stiles frowned again.

"Why would you do that?" He asked, there was a hint of irritation lacing his tones and Elsa frowned at it.

"Why wouldn't I? She's my _best friend_. Besides Scott told you." Perfectly shaped blonde eyebrows were raised in a silent challenge, daring Stiles to try and come up with sort of response.

In the front seat Scott scoffed quietly. Before last night he'd never really paid Elsa all that much attention. Sure as children they'd played together, out in the street riding their bikes and throwing a football between themselves but as they grew up they'd grown apart. He saw her about school, he knew she was pretty popular, and he'd heard a couple of the lacrosse boys talking about her in the locker room on more than one occasion – but all that had been superficial, he didn't actually know anything about her and the more she spoke the more he wanted to change that fact.

"She's got a point." He mused, grinning at the other boy.

For a while all four teenagers were silent, a quiet stalemate where no sarcastic comments were made and everyone simply exchanged glances. It was only when Shane cleared her throat to speak that the silence was broken.

"So anyway, have you two idiots banged your heads together and come up with an explanation for what happened last night then?"

Stiles ignored her insult and instead shook his head. "Nope, we've got a book, it's sort of like a dictionary of supernatural creatures…"

"A bestiary." Shane quipped. Stiles wasn't quick enough to disguise the impressed smile that flourished upon his features and Shane smirked at the sight of it.

"Uh, yeah a bestiary. Anyways I looked through every single page last night. There's nothing about spontaneously setting on fire."

"So you don't know what I am?" Elsa's voice was quiet in the back seat, a lot less confident than it had been only moments previous when she'd challenged Stiles. Shane reached out a hand and took the blondes in her own, giving it a light squeeze. Elsa squeezed back and flashed her best friend a light hearted smile – doing her best to hide her fear from showing on her face. If she wasn't anything supernatural then what the hell was she? Was it going to happen again? Was she dangerous?

"Of course we do. You're Elsa..." Scott replied, his voice was calm and his eyes kind. "…and we're all going to figure this out together. But not right now, because right now we need to get to school or we're going to be late for the first day of our senior year."

A small smile danced on Elsa's lips and she nodded slowly. "Yesterday morning all I had to worry about was college applications." The blonde mused as she leant back in her seat – which vibrated as Stiles kicked the engine into gear. "At least now I can burn down the colleges that don't let me in."

"That's the spirit!" Shane grinned beside her, glancing out the window as she spoke, she watched their street disappear into the distance. "We could even pimp out your powers, fire for hire."

In the front seat Scott and Stiles exchanged a worried glance, they'd not spent anywhere near enough time with the two girls to know whether or not they were joking, and Shane's tone was unnervingly serious.

Whilst the two girls plotted serial arson in the back seat, Stiles tapped his fingertips agitatedly against the steering wheel, an annoying tick that didn't go unnoticed by his best friend, or the two girls in the back either.

"Would you cut that out, you're drowning out the sweet sounds of Greenberg's anguished screams in my mind." Shane snapped, earning a chuckle from Elsa.

Stiles' fingers stopped their rhythmic tapping and he glanced at the two girls in the rear view mirror. "Uh, sorry, I mean, what? That's mildly concerning?"

"It was a joke dumbass."

"You okay dude?" Scott questioned and from the back seat Elsa silently wondered whether his sultry tenors were ever _not_ laced with at least a little concern.

Taking one hand off the wheel to run it slowly down his face Stiles allowed an exasperated sigh to fall from his lips. "I asked my dad to look into the Raeken's this morning…and he said no."

"What?" Any hint of concern had all but vanished from Scott's voice and had been replaced by one that sounded, to Elsa, to be much more accusing than anything else. "Well of course he said no, there's nothing to look into."

"Okay, yeah Scotty fine, you want to believe that he conveniently shows up just in time to save you from getting the life sucked out of you by some crazy eagle werewolf dude then go for it. But I don't trust him. Besides, Parrish did a little digging for me. They have an outstanding speeding ticket."

Scott turned from Stiles and shook his head. "He's not done anything to make you believe we can't trust him…and _you_ have seventeen outstanding speeding tickets."

Stiles didn't have an answer for that, what Scott had said was true. Theo Raeken had turned up at precisely the right moment and saved Scott's life, something that Stiles would probably never have been able to do himself and although he knew he should be thankful, he simply wasn't. In fact, although he would never admit it to himself, Stiles Stilinski was quickly growing tired of being the only god damn human left in Beacon Hills – hell, even Elsa Kirsch had sprouted supernatural powers out of nowhere.

Shane Campbell leant forward in her seat leaning her elbows on the back of Scott's chair and shrugging. She hadn't been there for the commotion last night, but she had met Theo and had the whole tale recounted to her by Elsa whilst they lay in the dark. So she liked to think she knew enough of what was going on to throw in her two cents.

"Theo Raeken put gum in my hair in the second grade." Scott blinked slowly, not quite believing that given all that he had been through in the past few years – this was the worst thing Shane could come up with.

"It's true." Elsa piped up, leaning forward and mirroring Shane, leaning her own arms on the back of Stiles' seat just as he pulled into the Beacon Hills High parking lot. "She made me cut it out for her, it's how we met. I mean I guess we should actually thank him."

"Fuck no, he's the reason I had a bob until the fourth grade. The guy might be hot but he cannot be trusted."

"Case closed." Stiles muttered as he turned off the engine turning to Elsa and Shane with a grin before climbing out of the car and instantly being greeted by Malia who had pulled up in Lydia's car in the space beside them.

"I hardly thing putting gum in Shane's hair is cause for…" Scott began as he clambered out of the car. Stopping himself mid-sentence to help the girls out the back seat – ever the gentleman.

"Someone put gum in your hair?" Lydia Martin's voice was like honey and the petite redhead frowned. She never could understand why someone would do such an injustice, especially to Shane whose long brunette waves Lydia had always admired from afar.

"It reeks of tension in your Jeep." Malia commented, sniffing the air inside the car with a frown. Stiles rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, well Scott and I had a little disagreement over whether or not we should trust Theo." He explained, scratching the back of his head as he talked. Scott frowned but otherwise remained silent. He didn't want to argue with his best friend, especially not today, the first day of their final year of school together.

"No not that kind of tension. Like…sexual tension."

Malia sniffed again and Elsa's mouth fell open in shock. The blonde had known about the existence of the supernatural world for less than twenty four hours and so far it hadn't failed to both surprise and amuse her – it also absolutely terrified her but she was doing her best to supress those particular thoughts.

"Elsa." The werecoyote addressed her suddenly. "Do you like Scott?" Malia's tone was deadly serious and suddenly all eyes were on the blonde. Scott shifted uncomfortably where he stood, Lydia smirked and Elsa desperately prayed that the ground would open up and swallow her whole.

Her cheeks flamed red and a worryingly familiar tingling sensation ran from her fingertips up the length of her arms, she was burning up and apparently only Shane noticed. Linking her arm expertly through that of her best friends Shane quickly steered Elsa away. Shouting back a quick ' _well it's been swell thanks for the ride'_ and dragging Elsa out of the parking lot as quickly as she could.

"E stop it." She demanded, shaking Elsa's shoulders hard in an attempt to snap the blonde out of it. "Elsa I swear to god if you set on fire in front of the whole school I will never talk to you again."

Elsa's arms were burning and she clenched her teeth together, breathing hard through her nose. In front of her Shane tried to demonstrate some calming breathing techniques, the kind of thing she'd seen on tv when women were about to give birth, but her efforts were to no avail.

"She just said it, like it was nothing." Elsa mumbled, folding her arms across her chest tightly and tucking her hands under her arms.

"Yeah the girls got no filter it's nothing to get flamey over." Shane was trying to make light of the situation, but Elsa knew her better than that – there was real concern in her best friends eyes, and Elsa couldn't bare the sight of it.

Looking past Shanes head she focused on the cars pulling up to the school. She gave all her attention to the students climbing out of various vehicles and ignored the searing pain that licked at the skin of her arms. Her cerulean gaze settled on a silver 4x4 and she watched as a boy stepped out of it. He turned to close the door and he smiled at his mother who waved as she drove away, and when he caught sight of Elsa he grinned holding up his hand and waving. Without thinking Elsa did the same, freeing her left hand from its previous position under her right arm and giving him a wave in return.

Shane took a step back, glancing over her shoulder and nodding slowly at Theo Raeken before turning back to Elsa. "Has it stopped?" She asked, a thick brow rose in suspicion.

"Yeah…" Elsa watched Theo walk into the school before finally giving Shane her full attention once again. "Yeah it's stopped."

"Senior year is going to fucking suck." Shane muttered, linking her arm through Elsa's once again and heading towards the double doored main entrance of the high school.

"I wouldn't be too sure."

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys, sorry it's been so long since the last update + I'm sorry this chapter is super short. I had a couple of days where I lost all confidence in writing after a few negative messages but i'm back now! Anyways, hope you like the chapter + sorry again that its so short. As usual if you have time please leave a review because they always motivate me so much. If you want to see more Elsa (and my other From Ashes OC's who've yet to make an appearance) then head over to my blog (lydamartin) on tumblr. Thank you again for all your wonderful support!**


	5. Chapter 5

Oliver Blackwood was ready for his senior year. Well, emotionally he was ready, academically he probably could've done with at least another year but a full lacrosse scholarship to the University of Southern California meant that as long as he at least passed his senior classes – pretty soon he'd be able to leave Beacon Hills, and his adopted family behind. It wasn't that he didn't like his foster parents, Steven and Felicity Bennett had never been anything but wonderful to him ever since they took him in at six months old, and he'd watched them do the same with his brother Luke who they'd adopted when Oli was seven. It was just that ever since he'd discovered that he was adopted, that he was a Blackwood and not a Bennett, he'd felt as though something in his life was missing and he planned to find that missing piece at college. There were other things he'd miss about the fucked up little town he lived in, he _wouldn't_ miss the unexplainable deaths, or the mountain lion attacks but he most certainly _would_ miss the blonde and brunette that were currently walking towards him.

"You know, the boys locker rooms are for the boys." He pulled his lacrosse jersey up over his head, revealing his toned chest and abs. Elsa rolled her eyes, Shane's teeth sank gently into her bottom lip and her dark gaze lingered for perhaps a fraction of a second too long.

"Soccer team line ups were posted this morning." Elsa explained.

"Sweet, did you make it?"

"I've not checked yet, I wanted to wait for you. It's tradition. So put on a damn shirt because I don't know how much longer I can swallow back my vomit." She tilted her blonde head ever so slightly to the side and grinned. Beside her Shane had finally found her words and nodded.

"She's right. You're gross."

Oliver grinned, tossing his dirty jersey into the back of his locker and pulling out a fresh black t-shirt. He dressed quickly then slung each of his arms lazily around the shoulders of his two best friends. He'd known Elsa for as long as he could remember, and she'd introduced him to Shane in second grade when the two girls had met. Every year they made a point of checking the team sheets together, and then spent the evenings of their first days back at school either celebrating or commiserating depending on what the notice board said.

A few of the other lacrosse boys wolf whistled as Oliver walked out of the locker room with not one but two girls on his arm. Oli responded with a cheeky wink and a flash of his middle finger as he wheeled the girls out of the locker room and back into the much fresher air of the Phys Ed hallway. As the trio neared the notice board Elsa buried her face in his shoulder, and groaned. Shane laughed, took a step forward and ran her finger along the list of names that had made it onto the soccer team this year. She read them aloud as she went, a few of them Elsa agreed with – Hayden Romero for example, the girl was a god damn machine when it came to soccer, her and Charlotte Finstock the coaches daughter were both definitely assets to have on the team – others she wouldn't personally have given a place.

"Holy shit Els." Shane murmured as she continued down the list.

"What? Oh my god what?" The blondes face was still very much buried in the black material of Oliver's shirt and she groaned again when he rubbed his hand gently against her arm – it was definitely bad news.

"Elsa Kirsch." Shane read aloud, turning to Elsa with a smile. "Captain."

Before she knew it Oliver had scooped Elsa up in both arms, lifting her from the ground and spinning her around in a bone crushing hug. A noise that could only been described as one of excitement fell from his lips and Elsa laughed, she hadn't heard anything that high of an octave come out his mouth since they were kids. After a few moments of awkward flailing she returned his hug, and once he placed her gently back down on the ground Shane joined in.

"I told you senior year wasn't going to suck you're such a pessimist." Shane mumbled into Elsa's loose blonde curls.

Elsa laughed and gave each of her best friends one last quick hug before securing the strap of her backpack on her shoulder and backing away. "Whatever…Anyway, I've got bio so I'll see you guys at lunch?"

The pair nodded and Elsa turned on her heel, darting away from the two people she cared most for in the world. In the main hallway that lead to the biology labs a crowd of students filled the hallway, they milled about the door to Mrs Martin's office, all of them whispering animatedly between themselves. Elsa had half a mind to stop and join in, but she'd heard that her new biology teacher was a real tyrant and she didn't feel like making a bad impression on her first day.

Stepping into the biology lab Elsa was immediately hit with the smell of cleanliness, sure the rest of the school wasn't exactly dirty but there was something about the lab that smelled especially sterile – though that might have had something to do with the fact that she'd only recently left the boys locker room which smelt like death at the best of times. She wasn't the first person to arrive, sat at the back was Lydia Martin – not a surprise – beside her was Sydney, a girl that Elsa was friends but whom she very rarely spent time with outside of school. The brunette mouthed a quick 'sorry' to Elsa, she obviously hadn't realised her friend would be in the same class as her, if she'd known she probably wouldn't have offered to partner up with the strawberry blonde beside her. Opposite Lydia and Sydney, Kira Yukimura was the sole occupant of a two man bench; Elsa toyed with the idea of going to sit beside her but eventually decided against it and took a seat on the bench in front of Kira instead.

When Scott McCall entered the room, Elsa's first thought wasn't one of confusion as to why he was taking this class – she didn't doubt that he had the intelligence to study alongside the likes of Lydia Martin – but was one of sheer embarrassment as she remembered the scene by Stiles' Jeep earlier that morning, the one she'd been promptly dragged away from before she accidently sent Malia up in flames. The blonde straightened up on her stool as Scott headed straight for her, she did her very best to act surprised when he stopped alongside her bench and from the smile on his face it was obvious that she wasn't as good an actress as she'd hoped.

"Hey listen, I'm sorry about Malia earlier she's still…adjusting."

Elsa scoffed, the sort of sound that she hoped showed that she didn't mind, complete and utter humiliation by a girl who spent the majority of her life living in the woods was no water off Elsa Kirsch's back.

"Yeah, no, I mean uh, don't worry about it. It's nothing. I get it." She rambled, her hands moving animatedly in front of her as she spoke. Scott watched her, a bemused smile spreading across his handsome features with each word she spoke. "I mean, Beacon Hills High is pretty different to the preserve, she's all call of the wild, I get it. I've seen Mean Girls."

This was where she lost Scott, one of his thick eyebrows kinked ever so slightly and he laughed. "Yeah, well. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You kind of ran off on us."

"I'm peachy." A complete and utter lie.

"Okay good."

Elsa's lips formed a somewhat forced smile and she blinked up at Scott. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to offer him a seat next to her, but Kira clearing her throat on the bench behind her laid any notions of partnering up with Scott McCall for the year swiftly to bed.

"Scott, are you in the right class?" Kira's voice piped up behind them, dragging Scott's attention from the petite blonde girl before him. He glanced towards Kira and nodded slowly, pulling the text book he'd brought in with him from under his arm.

"AP Bio?" He replied with a grin. Kira nodded and moved her bag from the spare stool beside her, signalling for Scott to take a seat. He diligently did so, flashing Elsa another quick smile before moving to sit beside his ex-girlfriend.

Expelling a long, quiet breath Elsa moved to rest her head on the bench, relishing in the cool relief the sterile work surface gave her burning hot skin. For the second time that morning a conversation with Scott McCall had served to get the blonde all hot and bothered, and _not_ in the good kind of way. Her pity party was gate crashed when someone placed their books down on the desk about two inches from her head and then took the vacant stool beside her.

"How's it going Kirsch?" The voice asked, it was a voice that was instantly recognisable to Elsa, given that she'd pretty much dreamt about it all night in bed last night. "Or do you just go by Captain now?"

Dragging her head up from the bench Elsa narrowed her eyes at the owner of the voice. Theo Raeken was undeniably gorgeous, his eyes were like two god damn swimming pools that she just wanted to dive into and float around in for a good hour or two, his jawbone looked as though it had been crafted by Hephaestus himself and his hair fell in that effortlessly attractive kind of way that made her want to run her hands through it. Resting her head on one hand she raised a brow, despite his charming personality and more than agreeable outward appearance there was something shady about Theo Raeken, but as of yet she couldn't put her finger on it. The hormones clouding her judgement were almost definitely to blame.

"Kirsch is just fine, or at least it would be if you could pronounce it correctly. So maybe we should just stick to Elsa." Her tone was laced with disdain and blonde brows shot up as she spoke. She could explain what it was; something about Theo put her on edge whilst simultaneously calming her down. Her heart beat quick in her chest at the mere sight of him, but all and any fire within her was instantly extinguished the moment he entered a room.

"Alright Elsa, well you can call me Theo."

"I'll call you whatever I damn well please."

He smirked, and Elsa frowned. She wanted to wipe that smirk off his face, preferably with her own lips but a fist would be a good second choice.

The lesson progressed without any further antagonising behaviour by Theo, in fact between them the pair completed the tasks they were set well ahead of everyone else and were able to get a head start on studying for the quiz their ruthless teacher had already set for the next lesson. As a team Elsa and Theo worked well together, and even though his excessive confidence made her want to shove a Bunsen burner down his throat and set him on fire from the inside Elsa had to admit that she liked him. When the bell rang and Elsa stood, packing her things into her old rucksack Theo cleared his throat.

"What are you uh, doing…like now-ish?"

Elsa rolled her eyes, slinging her backpack over her right shoulder. "I've got to head down to the field, check out the team, and help with the freshman try outs." It was a genuine excuse, but still a rejection nonetheless.

"Mind if I stop by and watch?" Theo fidgeted on the spot. Elsa couldn't help but smile, something in the back of her mind flashed warning signs, she pushed those thoughts even further back and shrugged.

"Sure if fourteen year old girls in short shorts is your scene then I guess I'll look out for you lurking under the bleachers."

A hot blush peppered Theo's defined cheekbones and Elsa raised her brows in amusement. Theo didn't reply and Elsa took that as her cue to leave, flashing him a smirk as she turned on her heel and headed for the door. After a fraction of a second he moved to follow her, only to be held back by Scott who spoke to the blond boy in a hushed voice. Not really caring about or wanting to get involved in whatever pack drama was no doubt unfolding Elsa ducked out of the room and headed straight for the soccer pitch.

* * *

Theo didn't turn up at the soccer try outs; in fact Elsa didn't see him or anyone else other than Shane and Oliver for the majority of the day. The only other interaction she had with another student was the note Scott McCall had pushed through the slots in her locker door.

 _'_ _Still up for practice at my house tonight? 7pm? S x'_

"Practice?" Shane had jeered as she read the note over Elsa's shoulder, giving her friend a soft nudge in the ribcage. "Is that what ' _Netflix and chill'_ turned into after all the soccer moms discovered it's sordid true meaning?"

Elsa had pulled a face in response, making sure to fold the note neatly and put it away safe in her pocket before slinging a lazy arm around Shane's shoulders and placing an exaggerated kiss on the brunette's cheek. "Make as many sarcastic comments as you like Campbell, you're home alone with Viktor tonight, moms got a date."

"Why are all the women in our house getting some except for me?"

"I'm almost certain you and Oli could come to _some_ sort of arrangement."

* * *

It took precisely three seconds for Scott McCall to open his door after Elsa knocked on it at 7:02pm, she knew that because she'd counted the agonisingly slow seconds out in her head whilst she did her very best to compose herself. Elsa Kirsch was by no means a shy girl, in fact she couldn't be silenced at the best of times. She also wasn't new to the dating scene, she'd had a string of relationships with both girls and boys and so it wasn't like she was nervous to be alone with Scott.

When he pulled open the front door and she was greeted with his handsome, smiling face Elsa grinned a response. Scott stepped aside, motioning with his hand that she should come in and she bowed her head in silent thanks as she stepped over the threshold. It had been a good few years since she'd been in the McCall house, Scott's dad had probably still been around the last time the pair had hung out together in his room and to say things had changed since then would be a monumental understatement. Whilst the decor and the general homely feel was exactly as it had been all those years ago, there was something different about the house. Or maybe it was just Scott that was different; he was a man now, with an aura of power that he certainly hadn't possessed when they were children.

"So have you got like…a fireproof room set up?" Elsa's cerulean gaze flickered to each one of the photographs hanging on the wall opposite the stairs. She smiled at baby Scott and Stiles who grinned back at her from behind the glass.

"I was thinking just my bedroom actually." Stiles scratched the back of his neck, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. Elsa turned from the photographs and blinked slowly.

"Sure yeah, hope you're bedsheets are flame retardant. Not that…we'll be on the bed, just because it's your bedroom so there will be a bed there and I can't guarantee that I won't accidentally set fire to your bed so hopefully the sheets are you know…not flammable."

Scott laughed, motioning for her to head up the stairs. Elsa nodded slowly turning on her heel and taking the stairs two at a time, thankful that Scott was headed up behind her as it meant he couldn't see the endless stream of profanities she was mouthing silently at herself.

"So what were you whispering to Theo about at the end of bio then?" She questioned, in an attempt to redirect the conversation away from whatever the train wreck that just happened downstairs was.

"Me and Stiles wanted to talk to him in the free period, you know ask him how he got turned."

"Ahh yes wolf things." Elsa perched on the end of Scott's bed, sitting on her hands and grinning.

"Wolf things." Scott repeated with a grin, he watched Elsa sitting on the end of his bed for a minute and then moved across his bedroom, grabbing a small piece of paper from the top of his chest of drawers before settling himself next to Elsa. "Stiles doesn't trust him."

"Is this the illusive speeding ticket?" Elsa nodded to the piece of paper Scott held in his hands, he nodded and handed it over. Watching the blonde carefully as she studied it.

"According to Stiles, this signature here," Scott pointed at the scribble on the bottom right hand corner of the page "…and this one…" he pointed again this time to a second signature on the second sheet of paper "…don't match."

Elsa looked carefully at each scribbled letter, holding the tickets up to the light emitted from the bulb in the centre of the room before bringing them back down to rest on her legs. "He's right, they don't match."

Scott's mouth fell open and he glanced from the tickets to Elsa's face and back again. "What? They look pretty similar to me."

"Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty legit forgery but here look." Elsa's turn to point now, holding the tickets side by side she traced the letters with her index finger as she explained. "Whoever wrote the first one started their 'R' at the top, dragging the pen down then finishing it off in a different stroke." She showed a quick example with her finger in the air before continuing. "Now whoever wrote this one, started their 'R' at the bottom moving the pen upwards. You can tell by the strokes in the ink."

Scott blinked in silent wonder, somehow in just a few seconds Elsa had managed to make him question the validity of the signature – something Stiles had been unable to do all afternoon. "It could still be the same person though right?"

"I mean I guess it could yeah, but it's not likely. It's the kind of thing you wouldn't change, no matter how many years passed. Sort of like when you fold your arms, you always put the same one over the top, its instinct. It would feel wrong if you did it any other way."

"So Stiles was right, Theo…isn't Theo?"

"I'm not saying that, I'm saying Theo's dad didn't sign this ticket.

"Wow."

"I went through a real C.S.I phase; I've not always been as cool as I am now you know." Elsa pulled a face, handing the tickets back to Scott who stretched across the bed, placing them in the top drawer of his bedside table.

"Alright then, still want to try and figure this whole fire thing out?"

"Absolutely." Elsa jumped up from the end of his bed, stretching her arms out and jumping up and down a few times on the spot, Scott mirrored her movements, moving to stand directly in front of her.

"Okay, just close your eyes. What normally triggers it?"

Elsa open one eye and glanced at him, quickly closing it when Scott caught her peeking. "I don't know…" She lied, in the past twenty four hours she'd actually set on fire once last night and felt as though she was about two again this morning in the parking lot. Both times it had been because of Scott, the first time he'd been in agonizing pain and the second time Malia had just announced that Elsa had feelings for him. Somehow she didn't feel like admitting that so far, Scott had been her trigger.

"That's fine, I didn't know at first either. Okay let's try something else. You have to find an anchor, something that you can focus on when you feel like you're about to lose control."

"What like an object?"

"Or a person, something you have a strong connection to."

"Like a _Patronus_?"

"I guess so yeah."

"What's yours?"

Scott faltered for a moment before he finally answered. "Allison."

Elsa's eyes flickered open and her teeth sank slowly into her bottom lip. Allison Argent had died over a year ago, of course she hadn't expected Scott or his friends to simply forget about her, but she also hadn't expected her to still be so present in something that was pretty crucial to Scott's life.

"Or at least she was at first."

He went on to explain in more detail, he told Elsa about the way he'd lost control of his shift after him and Allison broke up and how his mom told him to become his own anchor. She had to admit she was impressed, this was obviously some true alpha shit, there was no way she had enough self-control to be her own anchor, she was going to have to find something of her own to focus on.

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys! Another quick update! A little Elsa/Oli/Shane brot3 in this chapter, I absolutely adore their friendship. It's definitely going to appear more later on in the fic. Also Elsa finds out about anchors, points to whoever can guess what Elsa's is going to be. Once again thank you so so SO much for all the love and support for From Ashes. I don't understand it and it honestly blows me away. You guys are the best! As always if you have time or if you want to then please leave a review as they honestly motivate me so much. If you want to see more Elsa edits/gifsets/headcanons as well as all the other FA OC's then head to my blog (lydamartin) on tumblr where you'll find all sorts of crazy fun stuff. Thank you again! x**


	6. Chapter 6

"Oh fuck Scott, I'm so sorry." Elsa shook the flames from her hands before covering her face with them once they were finally extinguished. She parted the fingers on her left hand ever so slightly, one icy blue eye blinking at Scott through the gap.

On the other side of the room Scott moved quickly, grabbing the fire extinguisher that he'd brought up to his room a couple of minutes into Elsa's training and putting out the blaze that was his bathroom door. With the flames out, he moved to inspect the damage, nothing too major – the door was blackened and charred but otherwise marginally unscathed. "It's fine, honestly it's fine." He murmured, turning back to Elsa with a bemused smile. "Eleventh times a charm, at least this time you didn't get me."

Dropping her limbs from her face Elsa folded her arms tightly across her chest, tucking her hands under her arms in a subconscious attempt to stop them from spontaneously setting anything else alight. Her cerulean gaze flitted to Scott, trailing from his dark eyes down to his chest and the shirt he was wearing. When they started this attempt at control, god knows how many hours ago, the shirt had been crisp and white – free from any sort of blemish or stain – but now it was blackened, charred and riddled with holes, which gave Elsa a sneak peek at his toned chest that the rest of Scott's shirt kept covered. Swallowing hard she offered him a meek smile in response, they'd been at this for hours and Elsa had been forced to extinguish Scott with an extinguisher far more times than she cared to admit, she was certainly no closer to having control over this _thing_ inside of her, in fact she felt as though it were more volatile than ever.

"I am so sorry." She was exhausted; it was all over her face and showed in the way she could barely keep herself upright.

"Honestly." Scott's voice was soft as he walked towards her, stopping just shy of her, genuine concern flashing upon his handsome features. "You can't expect to get it on the first try."

"I know, and you're right. I just didn't expect it to take it out of me as much as it has. Not to mention the fact that I'm so worked up now I'm probably going to set fire to the bathroom just brushing my teeth, oh god and _Shane_ what if she gets in my bed and I get caught off guard. She'll go up like a god damn Christmas tree." Running a hand through her hair Elsa perched herself on the end of Scott's bed, smiling when he sat down beside her.

He was about to assure her that none of those things were going to happen, but the idea of Shane and Elsa cosying up together in the night time completely disrupted his chain of thought. "Doesn't Shane have her own room?" Was all he could muster up, and he only blinked when Elsa laughed at his response.

"Yeah but I can't tell you the last time she slept in it…Anyways that's beside the point, get your mind out the gutter, I don't want to kill my best friend in my sleep Scott."

Scott nodded, in the back of his mind he was playing a pretty vivid scene of Elsa and Shane's bedtime routine but at the forefront he understood Elsa's fears – they were ones he'd experienced himself back when he first turned. "Well maybe you shouldn't go home tonight, stay here, _cool off_ , you can head home in the morning before school starts. That way, you won't burn your house down and I can keep an eye on you."

She ignored his lame attempt at a 'heat' related joke; it would no doubt be the first of many to come. "Stay here? Like…in your room?" Elsa asked, unable to hide the disbelief that laced her tones. Scott picked up on something else, he couldn't quite put his finger on it but if he had to guess he'd say it was excitement.

"Well yeah, I mean I can sleep on the chair." He motioned to the lone chair that sat on the other side of the bed. "We don't have a spare bedroom…"

"Okay fine, but you're staying in the bed with me." Her words had come out a little more forcefully than she'd originally intended and she was met with a raised brow from Scott. "I've slept next to Shane every night for the past couple of years, I am not sacrificing a comfortable nights spooning just because I might accidently set you on fire. And since we've already discovered that you can take a good roasting I figure you'll last the night."

"Well when you put it like that…" Scott was laughing now, quietly, but laughing nonetheless. He turned his face to follow Elsa as she got up and walked to the other end of the bed, kicking off her old tattered converse before pulling back the covers and climbing underneath them. Once settled she grinned at Scott who returned the smile and moved to climb in beside her – after he too kicked off his boots.

* * *

Elsa woke at 6am sharp in a blissfully groggy state. Her blue eyes fluttered open and closed before she finally worked up the energy to keep them open for more than a few seconds. In her sleepiness she had almost forgotten where she was and so frowned when she wasn't greeted with the familiar surroundings of her own bedroom. There were no clothes strewn across the floor in this room, no hilarious photographs of her and Shane pinned haphazardly to the wall, in fact there wasn't a lot of personal items in Scott McCall's bedroom – maybe it's a boy thing, she thought before changing her mind, Oliver had all sorts of sentimental crap littering every surface in his bedroom, maybe Scott was just weird.

After some minutes deliberation she finally decided to move. Elsa had chosen to carefully slip out the bed and return home to shower and change her clothes before school, she'd explain to Scott later on why she wasn't there when his alarm woke him up. Her plan was foiled however by the alpha werewolf, whose strong arms only pulled her closer every time she moved even a fraction of an inch. The feeling of Scott's arms around her, holding her against his body, was one that Elsa Kirsch never thought she'd experience and one she most definitely wanted to experience again – despite it being a completely subconscious reflex on his behalf.

"I've got to go home." She whispered as she wriggled once more, apparently waking Scott who reluctantly let her go, murmured something completely incomprehensible and then rolled over, falling promptly back to sleep.

After pulling her shoes on, running a hand quickly through her hair and tugging on her jacket Elsa took one last look at a sleeping Scott McCall, wanting to mentally store the image in case she never got to see something so completely adorable again. She lingered at the doorway for as long as she deemed socially acceptable before moving silently down the stairs, unlocking the front door and pulling it open as quietly as possible.

"Kira, honey." The voice of Melissa McCall caused Elsa to stop dead in her tracks, one foot out the door, the other rooted firmly to the hardwood floor inside the McCall house. "I thought I'd told you, you don't have to sneak out before dawn. I'm happy for you to stay over as long as your parents are too."

Elsa didn't know whether Melissa had just got in from a shift at the hospital, or whether she was just readying herself to leave. But the longer Scott's mom's voice flitted out of the kitchen the more awkward Elsa felt. Part of her wanted to simply make a run for it; it wasn't her problem if Melissa McCall thought Kira Yukimura was rude for running out on her son at six am. If Shane was here she'd urge Elsa to leave without another word, but against the blonde's better judgement and the screaming voice of her best friend in her head, Elsa closed the front door and walked slowly to the kitchen, popping her head around the doorframe with a meek smile.

"Uh, not Kira." She announced her presence with a little wave.

Melissa, who was half way through a slice of toast, coughed at the sight of the blonde Kirsch girl – absolutely not the person she was expecting when she'd heard the front door being opened. Dark eyebrows momentarily shooting up her forehead Mrs McCall nodded. "I can see that."

"Sorry, if I woke you or anything…I just need to go and get ready before school starts."

"Tell your mom I'm still on for Tuesday night if she is." Was all Melissa replied, taking a sip of coffee from her mug and smirking into the dark liquid as Elsa ducked out of the room – Lisa Kirsch was going to lose her mind when Mel told her about this little encounter for their weekly Tuesday wine night.

By the time Elsa had crossed the street and made it safely to her own front porch, the hot pink blush which peppered her cheeks still hadn't subsided, and she was pretty sure she was having a heart attack. She wasn't sure what was more embarrassing, getting caught trying to sneak out of Scott's house and being mistaken for sunshine and light Kira Yukimura, or the fact that as of about two minutes ago Melissa McCall almost definitely thought Elsa Kirsch and her son were having sex, probably the latter if Elsa was completely honest. She gave herself a few quiet moments to calm herself down; conscious of the fact that any heightened emotion could lead to the burning down of her family home – with her family inside it – which was absolutely not something she felt like dealing with any time soon. Confident that she wasn't going to spontaneously catch fire the moment she stepped over the threshold, the petite blonde turned her key in the lock and opened the front door to her home silently as not to wake anyone.

Her silence continued as she treaded carefully up the stairs, navigating the floorboards with the finesse of a girl who had sneaked downstairs on more than one occasion, for snacks, to walk a lover to the door and to try and to catch Santa Claus in action. Needless to say Elsa Kirsch knew exactly where to place her feet in order to not make a sound. Her silence was only broken when she pushed open the door to her bedroom, and it was an involuntary one of confusion.

"Huh."

Her bed was empty, and it was clear it hadn't been slept in. Something Elsa found quite peculiar given that Shane slept in it every night regardless of whether or not Elsa herself was in it. Closing the bedroom door behind her Elsa moved towards the bathroom which adjoined her bedroom to the one Shane was supposed to use, she headed straight through to her brunette counterparts room and was once again stumped to find the room on the other side of the door completely vacant. Shane wasn't here.

For now Elsa didn't think anything of it, although it was unlikely that Shane had gotten up this early and was already out of the house starting her day, there were other explanations for the feisty brunette's whereabouts – and Elsa was willing to bet good money that Shane had spent the night at Oliver's house after all. Happy in the knowledge that rather than lying dead in a ditch somewhere, her best friend was more than likely lying in the arms of her _other_ best friend Elsa closed both doors of the shared bathroom, pulled her t-shirt over her head and climbed into the shower. Realising now just how soot covered she'd managed to become after last night's training session as the water ran black into the bottom of the shower. _Gross._

By the time she was showered, dressed and ready to face yet another day of senior year she could hear both her mother and Viktor downstairs, chattering away about Lisa's date the night before. When she entered the kitchen and joined them her mother placed a gentle kiss atop of her blonde head, and Viktor poured his niece a cup of black coffee, sliding it across the work top towards her waiting hands.

"God morgon." She greeted them both with a breezy smile after taking a tentative sip of her coffee. "Vet du var Shane är?"

Lisa and Viktor exchanged a glance at Elsa's question; they'd both simply assumed that Shane had been with Elsa the night before, that's where she could usually be found.

"No _söttis_ , I haven't seen her since you left for school yesterday." Lisa answered, her Swedish accent just as thick today as it had been when she landed in America seventeen years ago. "I thought she was with you last night?"

"No…" Elsa mused aloud, taking another sip of coffee and debating whether or not now was the right moment to announce to her family that something very strange was happening to her. "I was at Scott McCall's house. Shane wasn't there."

At the mention of Scott McCall, Viktor Kirsch visibly straightened up, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly. "Vad gjorde du där?"

 _What were you doing there?_

It wasn't the question that made Elsa feel uncomfortable, it was Viktor's tone of voice when he said it, it was accusing and suspicious and the frown that was set on his pointed features only served to further confuse the petite blonde. "Uh, studying." She replied after a moment's thought, it was technically not a lie. "Whatever it's fine, I'm sure she crashed at Oli's or something."

Lisa shook her head once more, and Elsa was certain she saw a hint of worry etch itself upon her mother's impossibly pretty face. "Oliver came here last night, wanting to know if you girls wanted to go out to a movie. You weren't answering your phones, I told him you were out."

"Oh…"

"I'm sure she's fine hjärtat, you know what our Shane is like. She is free." A reassuring smile replaced the look of concern on Lisa Kirsch's face and somehow managed to put a stop to all and any concern brewing in the pit of Elsa's stomach.

"You're probably right; I'll ask her about it at school. Which, by the way, I am totally going to be late for. "

"Your uncle will take you." It was more of an order than a suggestion, and so, beside his sister Viktor nodded, draining the last of his coffee before grabbing his keys from their home in a basket on the countertop and making his way towards the front door at a frankly alarming pace for a man wearing a floor length kimono and platform sandals. Elsa didn't exactly understand how he was going to drive in this particular attire, but had long since learnt not to question the ways of Viktor Kirsch.

* * *

"Be careful with Shane today." Viktor's words dragged Elsa from the almost trance like state she'd fallen into somewhere between their front drive and the school parking lot. Her booted feet were rested lazily up on the dashboard and her hands drummed rhythmically against her thighs in time to whatever song happened to be playing on the obscure Swedish radio station Viktor had somehow managed to tune his car into.

She was unsure whether he'd struggled to find the right words in English, and her confusion was clear in her expression and the way her head tilted ever so slightly to the side causing her blonde hair to fall across her face. "What?"

"Be careful. When you see Shane. She may not be herself." Viktor's sentences were short, concise and came out exactly as he had intended them to. The same look of suspicious concern that had flourished upon his features in the kitchen no more than twenty minutes ago was back with a vengeance and Elsa frowned at the sight of it.

"You know something don't you Vik?"

"Promise me."

"Promise you what?"

"That you'll be careful."

There was only so much of her uncle's eccentricity and love of theatrics Elsa could take before she was tipped over the edge, and she was quickly nearing that metaphorical ledge, ready to take a nosedive off of it. "I'm not promising you anything, not until you tell me what you know." Her tone was challenging, menacing almost, something that sounded entirely wrong coming out of her. "And don't you dare play the weird stoned uncle card Vik…"

Viktor sighed heavily and leant across Elsa, opening the passenger side door for her and gesturing his head for her to get out. "It is not my place, everything will be clear soon enough." Long pale limbs shoved Elsa from her seat and threw her the rucksack she'd tossed into the back when they'd climbed in. "Remember what I said pussgurka."

With that Viktor Kirsch was gone, leaving his niece stood open mouthed in the Beacon Hills High parking lot with about a million thoughts and questions whirling in her mind, the most prominent of which being: _when in the hell is he going to stop calling me a god damn kiss cucumber?_

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys, sorry it's been so long since my last update! First of all I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has followed/favorited, I'm blown away by the support this story and Elsa is receiving! Just a short chapter here, setting us up for some exciting things to come a little later on. As usual I hope you enjoy it and if you do then please leave a review as they completely make my day! If you'd like to see any more of Elsa and her crazy shenanigans then head to my blog on tumblr (lydamartin) and go to /tagged/elsa kirsch where you'll find all my edits/headcanons etc etc. Thank you again guys! Honestly.**


	7. Chapter 7

Elsa didn't know how long she stood in the same spot, glaring at the empty space that her uncle's car had occupied but she didn't doubt that it was a good few minutes – given the strange looks people around her were casting in her direction once she finally snapped herself out of it. Blinking rapidly and giving her blonde head a quick shake she brought herself back to reality just in time to see Oli heading towards her, a look of pure confusion etched upon his handsome features. She inwardly groaned, Oliver was going to have questions, ones that she wasn't necessarily ready to answer – especially not without Shane, who was still MIA.

"Hey!" Oli called out, stopping Elsa in her tracks and preventing any sort of sneaky escape.

"Morning." She'd hoped that her voice sounded as breezy and carefree as it usually did, but the frown that furrowed Oliver Blackwood's brow told her otherwise.

"Where were you last night? I phoned you like a billion times, and then I went to your house. Your mom said you were out." He folded his arms across his chest and Elsa all of a sudden felt very, very small. Oliver was her oldest friend, she'd known him longer than she'd known Shane and up until very recently she couldn't recall ever lying to him. She hated this.

"I _was_ out; I was at Scott McCall's house…uh…all night."

Oli's eyes went wide and Elsa could've sworn she saw a hint of a smirk etch itself upon his lips before vanishing almost as quickly as it had appeared, being replaced once again by his stony 'concerned best friend' expression. For a moment he was silent, mulling over Elsa's answer before a horrible thought dawned on him and he asked. "Was Shane there? Like…with you? With McCall?"

Elsa couldn't help it; she wasn't sure whether it was his question or the look on his face that she found more hilarious, and so unable to suppress it she laughed. "God, no! Not that I'd be totally opposed to that but no. It was just me. I'm not sure what Shane was up to last night actually, I've not seen her."

"Oh okay, good. I mean…whatever, it's not like I care what she gets up to all that much anyway. I was just worried about you two; normally your cell phones are permanently attached to your hands."

"That's sweet Oli, but the pair of you have got to stop pretending you're not into each other, at least around me, it's actually kind of offensive that you think I don't already know."

"The pair of us?"

Elsa linked an arm through Oliver's and grinned up at him, choosing to instead steer the conversation in a different direction than answer his question. "Come on lets go find Shane."

The search for the illusive Shane Campbell had been, quite frankly, a lot easier than Elsa had anticipated. She'd been expecting an intensive search, spanning the entirety of Beacon Hills High School, something akin to finding a super rare Pokémon, or a two headed albino rattle snake. In actual fact Oliver and Elsa found Shane exactly where she was supposed to be – right next to her locker, throwing books into it without a care in the world.

"Where were you last night?" Oliver blurted out the question before Elsa even got the chance to announce their presence with a subtle throat clearing. At the sound of his voice Shane popped her head around the side of her locker door and raised a perfectly shaped brow.

"Good morning to you to." She muttered a response before her gaze settled upon Elsa and a wicked grin lit up her pretty features. "And an especially good morning to you Miss Kirsch, how was last night?"

Elsa felt her cheeks warm and hoped desperately that the pink blush that was washing over her face wasn't too noticeable, though from the amused expression on Shane's face it was pretty clear that she'd gone bright red. "It was fine, we just uh, studied and then went to sleep."

"That's right, save the sordid details for when we are alone. Blackwood is too innocent to hear such things."

"I am not." Oliver protested, his brows creasing into a frown. "So where were you whilst Elsa was with McCall?" He repeated his earlier question, and to his surprise Shane actually answered this time.

"I was at home."

"No you weren't." Elsa and Oliver said in unison. They instinctively turned to one another with a grin, if they hadn't had been so invested in finding out what Shane had been up to the night before they probably would've 'jinxed' one another and been silent for the rest of the day. Instead Elsa nudged Oli with her elbow and the pair of them turned back to Shane with much more serious expressions etched upon their faces.

"How would you know?" Dark brows were raised once more and Oli folded his arms defiantly across his chest in response.

"Because I called round, Lisa said that neither of you were in."

"Well I was, all night."

Elsa watched in silence as the pair of them bickered like an old married couple, listening intently to Shane's words before shaking her head and siding with Oliver. "Your bed wasn't slept in…and neither was mine." She added as an afterthought. "Mom and Vik said you weren't home all night…"

Shane sighed heavily, turning back towards her locker to retrieve one of the books she needed for her first class. "Are you two honestly going to demand a detailed breakdown of my evening?"

Oliver and Elsa nodded in perfect synchronisation, making Shane roll her eyes.

"I finished school, headed to the mall, got a smoothie, bumped into that Theo kid you're so hot for Els, bought a cute top and then umm…" Her voice trailed off as she attempted to remember anything else she'd done the previous evening.

"You saw Theo? At the mall?" Elsa asked, doing her very best to hide the sliver of jealousy that laced her tones. Shane nodded slowly. "What did you do with him?"

"I don't know, talked?"

"What about?"

Shane rolled her eyes for what felt to her like the millionth time, tossing her hair over her shoulder and adjusting her bag as if she had other things to worry about.

"What didn't we talk about? All we did was chat...you know….how's your day? Did you do the homework? Do you want a ride home? _Etcetera, etcetera_ …" the normally excited and upbeat brunette sounded positively bored.

Elsa practically stumbled. Which was an incredible act given that she was standing completely still.

"What do you mean want a ride home? Whose home? Whose car? Did you go with him? What happened next? Is he a chart hits guy or R&B cause the snapbacks give me all kinds of mixed signals If I'm really honest." Elsa threw her hands in the air violently in a very Stiles-esque fashion, trying to swallow the urge to run around breathing fire and screaming over the fact that her best friend had been fraternizing with the _supposed_ enemy. Not only was she extremely concerned by the fact that Shane had dropped off the face of the earth for an entire night with next to no explanation as to why, but she was also lowkey jealous that her beautiful brunette friend had officially spent more time alone with Theo Raeken than Elsa had so far been able to.

"Wow…" Shane breathed out a low whistle, a laugh tumbling from her full lips soon afterwards. Oliver joined her in laughing though the expression that flashed upon his handsome features was definitely more of a puzzled one, unlike Shane's extremely amused one.

"That was kind of crazy, even for you Els which is kind of saying something." Oliver added when the laughter subsided. Elsa merely frowned a response, as a soft rose pink blush peppered her cheeks.

Oliver and Shane exchanged a bemused glance and Elsa didn't doubt that their teasing would have continued had they not been interrupted by the stunning beauty that was Miss Lydia Martin who cleared her throat to announce her presence. The three friends turned to face her, Oliver's mouth dropped a little at the sight of her, her strawberry blonde hair fell in loose curls over her shoulders and she was wearing a particularly flattering blue dress. Shane took notice of the way Oliver was practically drooling over the redhead and promptly hit him over the head with her Psychology textbook – which just so happened to be the biggest and thickest one in the pile she was currently holding on to.

"Put it away Blackwood." Shane muttered before turning her attention back to Lydia and offering the girl a small smile, one that said 'sorry my friend is a leering asshole' but one that also said 'but he's my leering asshole so you know, don't get any ideas.' Lydia returned the smile halfheartedly before instantly turning to Elsa.

"Elsa can I talk to you for a minute…alone?"

Shane kinked a brow and Elsa chewed gently on her bottom lip as she scrutinized Lydia's expression. She was still yet to tell Oliver about everything that had happened these past few days, but something told her Lydia wasn't about to let the cat out the bag in the middle of a crowded high school hallway.

"You can say whatever you need to in front of my friends Lydia..."

"Oh, okay then, well me and Kira are taking Malia out for a driving lesson tonight and we wanted to know if you wanted to join us? Malia is sorry about what she said yesterday, not that she'll actually express it but you know?" Lydia shrugged lightly, glancing towards Shane before looking back to Elsa. "Shane can come too of course."

"Oh yeah no worries, I'm totally busy anyway…" Oliver muttered quietly to himself, earning a smirk from Shane who simply shook her head.

"Don't worry Lydia I've got plans tonight, but you guys have fun. Elsa is an excellent driver." Had Lydia known Shane as well as Elsa and Oliver did then she would have picked up on the subtle change in the tone of her voice, she was being sarcastic – which was a near constant thing for the brunette – because both Elsa and Oliver knew that Elsa was without a shadow of a doubt, the worst driver on the face of the earth.

"Oh well that's great then, we'll come by your place later? Around sixish? It's opposite Scott's isn't it? Okay, tonight!" The redhead was already halfway down the corridor and reunited with Kira and Malia by the time she'd finished her sentence. Elsa held up a solitary hand to wave her off before she turned back to Shane.

"That was weird right? Was that weird?"

"No that was awesome." Oliver cut in with a grin. "Lydia Martin is the most popular girl in school, when did you two become friends?"

"I'm uh…not really sure we are."

"But you're definitely part of the pack now." Shane mused, turning back to her locker and tossing a few notebooks inside before closing with a bang.

"The pack?" Oliver scoffed.

Elsa and Shane exchanged a glance before shrugging. "We call ourselves the Potato Commodores Oli, we can hardly judge."

Oliver nodded, accepting that other friendship groups had every possibility of being as weird as his without question. When the bell rang the trio said no more, instead Shane secured her bag on her shoulder and Oliver slung his arms lazily over the shoulders of his two best friends. Guiding them both, to the English class, that all three of them had first period. They didn't talk about Shane's mysterious disappearance, or the fact that she'd spent time with Theo Raeken, they spoke about what was to them more important; the new episode of _Orange Is the New Black_ which was airing tomorrow.

* * *

Shane, Elsa and Oli were a tangle of bodies on the sofa in Elsa's front room when the blonde's phone buzzed on the coffee table in the middle of the room. All three of them groaned at the sound of it, and even more so when they were forced to untangle their limbs and upset the balance of the perfect snuggle in order for Elsa to clamber out and grab her phone.

"Shit." She muttered, running a hand quickly through her hair and tucking her phone safely into the back pocket of her ripped skinny jeans.

"What?" Shane asked without looking away from the television, she opened her mouth wide and Oliver expertly threw a piece of popcorn into it from the opposite end of the sofa, Elsa couldn't help but be impressed with his aim.

"It's Lydia she's outside, I kind of forgot about the whole Malia's driving lesson thing."

Shane paused the television and turned to glance at her best friend; Oliver lolled his head over the arm of the chair and watched her carefully upside down – a là Spiderman. "You promised at lunch that you'd post a new chapter tonight." Oliver said, pouting his lips out ever so slightly. Elsa simply rolled her eyes.

"Oli is right, you've not updated in weeks. I'm getting antsy." Shane added, leaning to grab another handful of popcorn and popping it into her mouth.

"It's written, it's on my laptop and you guys can read it if you want. I'll post it tomorrow I promise. I've uh, got to go. I love you!" With that the bubbly blonde blew them both a kiss and ducked out of the room, pulling on her jacket before slamming the front door behind her – much to Lisa Kirsch's disgust who pulled a face at Melissa McCall who was sat opposite her on the breakfast bar in the kitchen. Both women took another swig from their obscenely large glasses of wine before going back to chattering between themselves.

"So John and Natalie?" Lisa asked, her accent thick. Melissa nodded slowly and Lisa frowned a response. "I never would have thought."

Back in the front room Shane sighed heavily, shifting her position on the sofa so that she was now lying next to Oliver, her head resting on his chest as the pair of them began another episode of _From Dusk Till Dawn._ "You want to read it later then?" She asked casually, Oliver nodded.

" _Dramione_ is my otp of course I want to read it."

All three of them were Harry Potter super fans.

* * *

Outside Malia had parked her Toyota about as far away from the curb as possible without actually being on the opposite side of the road and Elsa found herself feeling somewhat smug about it, perhaps there was another person who was as bad at driving as she was, or even worse, now that would be a sight to behold. The blonde pulled open the back door and climbed in beside Kira who beamed her sunshine and light smile at Elsa who returned it brightly. She half wondered whether it physically pained Kira to be so happy all of the time, but she decided not to ask.

Lydia turned in her seat to smile at Elsa. "Cute top." She commented before twisting so that she was facing forward once again. Elsa glanced down at the t-shirt she was wearing, it featured a piece of corn in blacked out sunglasses, definitely not something she thought Lydia Martin would be impressed by.

"Uh thanks?"

Malia turned next, sniffing the air in a very unsubtle manner and cocking her head to the side in a particularly puppy like fashion when she was finished. "You smell like butter popcorn."

"You don't smell so bad yourself." Elsa replied with a wink.

"I have a boyfriend." Malia stated simply as she turned back to the front, frowning when Lydia, Kira and Elsa laughed quietly.

All four girls were quiet for a while after that, giving Malia the chance to concentrate fully on not wrapping the mechanical contraption they were all sitting in around a tree. The only voice that was heard was that of Lydia who occasionally piped up to direct Malia on turns, wanting to get them to a quieter side of town where she knew the chances of a head on collision with another car were reduced exponentially.

Eventually they found themselves on a secluded stretch of road that ran alongside the edge of the preserve. Malia pulled the car to a stop on Lydia's orders, and then began checking her mirrors. Kira leaned forward from her position in the back, and Elsa mirrored her movements.

"Okay, hands on the wheel at ten and two." The kitsune explained, her voice just as upbeat as usual, though Elsa could swear she heard just a hint of apprehension.

Malia did as she was told, placing her hands on the wheel at the ten and two positions, only to take them off again when Lydia spoke. "Actually the recommended position is now nine and three, at ten and two a deployed airbag could break your thumbs."

"Mine would heal." Malia stated simply, making Elsa smile in the backseat. Lydia shook her head ever so slightly.

"Save your strength, and try not to destroy your beautiful new car…nine and three." Malia did as she was told.

"You know," Elsa began, "Oli sometimes drives just using his knees…"

Malia glanced at Lydia before looking down at her legs, the redhead shot out a hand resting it on Malia's thigh and gently pushing her knees away from the steering wheel. "No…" She warned. "Oliver Blackwood, like many boys on the lacrosse team, has a death wish. Nine and three."

Turning the key in the ignition, Malia pressed her foot gently on the ignition and as the car started to slowly roll forwards Kira piped up. "Alright, just ease into it, good…good. Okay, here you go!"

"Shut up." Malia muttered through gritted teeth.

"No problem. Shutting up." Kira pursed her lips, exchanging a quick glance with Elsa who simply shrugged.

"Uh, the other way Malia…" Elsa said quietly, leaning forward so she could get a better view out the front windscreen.

Malia continued to drive in the direction she was headed, which happened to be straight towards the trees that lined the edge of the Beacon Hills preserve. When the car moved from tarmac to earth Elsa felt it rumble beneath her and she momentarily covered her eyes.

"We are now off the road." Lydia said calmly, Elsa peeked out the gaps in her fingers to see that the redhead was very much correct, they were off-roading and headed straight for a tree.

"This is not the road." Elsa squeaked.

"Malia." Lydia said sternly.

"Please go the other way." Kira added.

"W-what is that? What's beeping?" Malia asked irritably as the impact warning light flashed on the dashboard between her and Lydia.

"The car is telling you not to run into the tree, turn the wheel. MALIA!" Lydia demanded, her voice finally getting a little more frantic. Elsa breathed an audible sigh of relief when Malia turned the wheel last minute and the car swerved, narrowly missing the tree they had been headed directly for.

"…and try to stay on the actual road." Elsa muttered from the back seat.

The car turned slowly in circles for a few minutes and Malia smiled to herself in the front seat, obviously thinking she was doing an excellent job of driving her friends to wherever it was Lydia had planned for them.

"Maybe you should press just a _little_ harder on the gas?" Lydia suggested, and with a grin Malia did as she was told. Slamming her foot down on the ignition. Elsa and Kira near enough fell on top of one another in the back seat, but after a few seconds the ride smoothed out and they both sat back in their rightful places looking decidedly more dishevelled than they had done when they'd gotten into the car.

"Turn up here." Lydia ordered, gasping when Malia whirled around the corner at breakneck speed. "Slowly! Slowly…okay…go." She pointed forwards.

Elsa sighed, glancing out the window. "Where are we headed anyways Lyd?"

"The school, I thought we could finish with parking practice in the lot?"

"Lydia, we're actually heading downtown…" Kira said quietly, a puzzled expression flourishing upon her features.

"What?"

"If we want to go to the school we should do a U-turn shouldn't we?"

"No…" Lydia said quietly, her voice suddenly very serious. Elsa glanced towards Kira whose expression had turned from one of puzzlement to one of concern. "Keep going."

"You sure?" Malia asked.

"Yes…we're almost there."

They drove for a little while longer before coming to a stop in the middle of a dimly lit road. Elsa took her time clambering out of the car, stretching her limbs whilst the other girls walked a little way ahead of where they'd put the car in park. "Well that was a wild ride from start to finish." Elsa mused as she ambled over to where the girls were stood staring at something in the distance.

"It's about to get a little wilder." Kira said quietly.

"Yeah, no shit." Elsa's mouth fell open at the sight in front of her. A prisoner transport vehicle was stuck sideways between to two high walls that lined the street, the back doors were near enough torn off their hinges and blood was spattered all over the place. That was not the most disturbing thing however, what made Elsa's blood run cold was the man who stared up at them, his entire body covered in deep cuts, blood pooling around him.

"Call 911." Lydia said calmly, almost as though she was not surprised in the slightest by what she was seeing. Elsa had so many questions, but instead she dug her hand into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out her phone to call the cops.

It took a matter of minutes for police cars to swarm the area, a deputy Elsa didn't recognise was first on the scene and he took Lydia to one side to talk to her privately. Elsa watched them over her shoulder for a while before turning to the other girls. "Is this a regular thing for you guys?"

Malia shrugged. "It's normally Lydia that finds the bodies."

"Normally? How many bodies have you guys found."

"Oh tonnes."

"What?" Elsa couldn't really believe what she was hearing, or how casually Malia talked about stumbling across a dead body. Her wide eyes found Kira who smiled meekly. "Do the cops know?"

"A couple of them, Parrish does…and Stiles' dad." Kira explained.

"This is so fucked up."

Stiles' blue Jeep pulled up about five minutes after Sheriff Stilinski arrived on the scene and Elsa found herself even more confused when Stiles, and Scott who was a few paces behind him, ducked under the investigation tape without once being questioned by any of the officers who were supposed to be guarding the crime scene. "Gill Grissom would never allow this kind of crime scene contamination." She muttered quietly, Malia pulled a face which Elsa could only assume meant she didn't understand the reference but Scott and Stiles prevented her from regaling tales of Gill Grissom and the Las Vegas CSI team fighting crime.

"Are you guys okay?" Scott asked, genuine concern lacing his tones. He look at each girl in turn, nodding at Elsa finally.

"Yeah," she spoke for all of them. "Can't say the same for those guys though." She motioned her head towards the bloody crime scene and the body that the coroner was currently covering with a white sheet. The two officers were still alive, although in a critical condition, the lawyer, who had apparently been in the front seat, hadn't been so lucky.

"What happened?" Stiles asked, walking around to Malia to give her a quick once over.

"I don't know, Lydia lead us here."

"No I mean with Donovan," Stiles corrected himself quickly. "Where is he?"

"We don't know that either." Elsa shrugged.

"Why are you here anyway Kirsch?" Stiles asked after a moment, his tone perhaps a little harsher than was entirely necessary. Scott frowned at the sound of it.

"I was invited."

"To the crime scene?"

"No dumbass, to Malia's driving lesson." Elsa folded her arms across her chest and raised her brows, challenging him to confront her further. Stiles didn't press the matter instead he turned to his father who had walked towards the group after being briefed by a couple of deputies.

"Boys," The Sheriff said before turning fully to face Scott. "Scott…you saw this kind Donovan, he wasn't like you right?"

Scott and Stiles exchanged a glance. "I don't think so." Scott shrugged.

"Unless he knows how to hide his scent." Stiles offered a possible explanation.

"Well human or otherwise, this kid might have just murdered his lawyer and mortally wounded two officers. We've got an ABP out on him but, you think you can find him faster?"

Scott nodded slowly. "I can try."

"Alright," The Sheriff handed Scott a radio handset, "Keep it on channel two."

With that Scott took off, nodding quickly towards the girls before disappearing into the night. Elsa shifted where she stood and although the Sheriff was not used to her being involved in these sort of events he didn't question her presence.

"Dad what if it wasn't Donovan?" Stiles suggested, turning to face the girls, away from the crime scene.

"I'm guessing you've already got a theory?" The Sheriff asked.

Whilst Kira and Malia stood giving their statements to deputies a little way away, and Lydia was deep in conversation with the deputy Kira had called Parrish earlier Elsa found herself the only person actually looking at the crime scene, or rather the surrounding area. There was a person standing up on one of the high walls that enclosed the road, in the darkness she couldn't exactly make out who it was though the defined jawline and perfectly styled hair that was shining in the moonlight gave her a pretty good idea. For reasons that she didn't entirely understand she said nothing however, and when Theo Raeken slinked off into the night she turned and walked silently back to where Kira and Malia were standing.

The girls gave their statements to the deputies one at a time, and Elsa was just about wrapping hers up when Scott McCall's voice came crackling through the radio headset attached to Parrish's shirt.

"Scott is that you?" The deputy asked. Suddenly finding himself surrounded by Lydia, Kira, Malia, Stiles and his father and Elsa as soon as she'd thanked and said goodnight to the officer taking her statement.

"Yeah I found Donovan." Scott's voice was distorted by the static on the radio but they could just about make out what it was he was saying. "He kept saying some name…"

"What name?" She Sheriff took the radio from Parrish.

"Theo…" Stiles muttered under his breath, Elsa didn't dare look at him for fear that he'd see she was keeping something from him, from everyone. Thankfully for her, no one else seemed to have heard him.

"Tracy. He keeps saying Tracy." Scott's voice crackled through the receiver once more.

"Tracy who?" Sheriff Stilinski questioned.

Lydia, who had been silent throughout the entire exchange glanced upwards. "Stewart. Tracy Stewart."

Elsa's phone buzzed in her back pocket and she stepped out of the small circle of people she found herself in to read the text.

 ** _UNKNOWN NUMBER:_**

 _THANK YOU_  
 _T X_

* * *

 **A/N: HELLO EVERYONE! It's been about a million years since I updated From Ashes and I am so sorry! I struggled for a long while finding Elsa's voice, but I stuck at it and hopefully I've done her justice here. I promise it wont be this long before I update again (well I hope at least) As usual please let me know what you think, reviews/follows/faves are greatly appreciated and motivate me more than you will ever know! If you feel like seeing any fun edits of Elsa (which I have been continuing to make despite not actually writing her for a while) then head over to my blog on tumblr (lydamartin) Also if you ever want to take Elsa in posts on there then use the tag 'Elsa Kirsch' cause I follow that! Thank you so much again guys, you all mean the world to me. Hope you enjoyed the update!**


	8. Chapter 8

Elsa read and reread the text at least six times before she locked her phone and shoved it forcefully back into the back pocket of her jeans, stepping back towards the group just as the Sheriff spoke again.

"I need to wrap up here but you kids better be getting home." He glanced towards Stiles with a stern expression. "…and I mean home, not out following whatever leads your over active imaginations come up with am I clear?"

"Yes sir." Stiles responded, his voice laced with just enough sarcasm that it was noticeable, but not enough that his father could say anything about it.

Kira linked an arm through Lydia's as the girls turned and headed back towards Malia's car. "You want me to drive?" Lydia suggested with a smile. Malia gave the offer a moment's thought before nodding and holding out the keys for Lydia to take. "You coming Elsa?" The redhead called out as she unlocked the car and pulled open the driver's side door.

At the sound of her name being called Elsa blinked a couple of times, snapping herself out of whatever Theo Raeken related daydream – or rather nightmare – she was thinking about. "I uh, yeah I'm coming." She turned on her heel to leave but was stopped by Scott who caught her slim wrist gently with his left hand.

"You might as well ride with us," He explained, behind him Stiles exaggeratedly rolled his eyes. "The girls live on the opposite side of town to us, it makes sense."

Elsa smiled, she smiled at his suggestion, and the way his hand felt against her skin, and after a second or two she nodded. "Yeah that's true. I'll ride with Scott and Stiles, thanks Lydia!" She called out. Lydia pulled a face, a sort of knowing smirk that made Elsa want to blush, and she silently thanked god that it was dark and her complexion was entirely visible.

"See you at school." Lydia chirped as she climbed into the driver's seat of Malia's car. Kira waved from the backseat as they drove off and Malia held her hand out the window in a half-hearted wave.

"Well come on then!" Stiles muttered, jerking his head towards his Jeep that was parked up a little way away from the crime scene. Scott nodded, gesturing with his hand for Elsa to go first, and pulled the door open for her when they reached the Jeep. She smiled as she walked past him and climbed up into her seat, biting back the urge to make whatever feminist comment was trying it's very best to fight its way through her lips. Sometimes, a guy was simply being a gentleman and wasn't trying to suppress her in any way. Elsa Kirsch truly believed in fucking the patriarchy, but as Scott McCall opened the door for her and helped her into the back of Stiles' Jeep her definition of that phrase became somewhat sordidly distorted.

"Are you sure you're alright? I mean I know these last few days have been a lot to take in." Scott asked as Stiles turned the key in the ignition causing the Jeep to rumble into life.

Elsa sighed quietly, turning her blonde head to look out the back window at the crime scene which gradually got smaller the further away they drove from it. "I mean…" Elsa began as she twisted in her seat to face Scott who was watching her carefully from the front seat. "No, not really. I've never seen a dead body before; internally I am freaking the fuck out. I get that this is totally normal for you guys but it's _not normal_. It's sort of worrying that you're all just okay with it." Scott glanced away for a couple of seconds before turning back to Elsa with a frown.

"None of us are okay with this Elsa…" He said quietly.

"I know, I do, but you're all so much stronger than me. You've been doing this for years; you guys all know what's going on. When Lydia started directing us with that weird monotone voice she had Kira and Malia knew exactly what was happening. I was in the backseat busy hoping we'd pass an _In N Out_ , not wondering whose dead body we were about to stumble upon." She glanced down at her hands, cracking each of her knuckles individually, a habit she'd had since she was a child. She'd thought back then that it made her look tough, ready to fight anyone for her corner of the sandbox but as she sat terrified in the back of Stiles' Jeep she had never felt more weak.

"Hey…" Scott said quietly, clambering out of his seat and into the back of the car alongside Elsa, much to Stiles' protest who swerved the Jeep a little in his confusion. Once settled he gently took hold of Elsa's hand - despite something in the back of his mind telling him that it was perhaps not his greatest idea – and gave it a light squeeze, making note of the fact that her skin felt dangerously warm. "That's exactly the reason why we need you, Elsa you see the world differently to us all. Sometimes a shadow really is just a shadow and there's nothing sinister about it, I think that you are the person that we need to remind us of that." Stiles watched the pair carefully through the rear view mirror but remained uncharacteristically quiet; Elsa on the other hand glanced up from her hands to Scott's face and sighed.

"…and when that shadow turns out to be a crazed murdering were-dinosaur I'll be totally useless." Scott smiled and shook his head.

"You'll get a hold of your powers Elsa, I've got faith in you."

The pair of them stared silently at one another, Elsa's blue eyes looking for something in Scott's brown without really knowing what it was she was searching for. He kept hold of her hand despite the fact that the longer he held onto her the hotter her skin felt against his. She was practically giving him second degree burns and he couldn't have cared less. They were only dragged back to reality when Stiles turned off the Jeep and cleared his throat, turning to face the pair of them.

"We're, uh, here." He said quietly. Elsa glanced at him, quickly pulling her hand from Scott's grasp and using it to tuck a flyaway piece of blonde hair behind her ear. Scott glanced down at his hand, and frowned at the odd sensation of cool that washed over it in her absence.

"Thanks for the ride." Elsa muttered quickly as she bolted out the car and ran across the street to her house.

"Dude…" Stiles teased Scott, a playful smirk flashing upon his features. Scott merely furrowed his brow, giving Stiles' shoulder a light shove as he climbed out the Jeep and headed towards his own front porch on the opposite side of the street to the Kirsch house.

Elsa did her best to regulate her breathing, she wasn't sure exactly what had just happened in the back of Stiles' car but she did know that every one of her limbs felt like they were on fire, and that it was a very real possibility that if she didn't calm down soon that feeling would soon be a reality. The sensation of her phone vibrating in her pocket drew attention away from the pain that licked its way up the skin of her bare arms and so pushing the pain she was experiencing aside she dipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone. She instantly recognised the number as the same one that had text her no more than an hour ago and despite the fact that a frown furrowed her brows at the sight of it, the fire that threatened to burst from her fingertips was immediately extinguished at the mere thought of Theo Raeken. _What an asshole,_ she thought to herself as she read the text.

 ** _UNKNOWN NUMBER:_**

 _WE NEED TO TALK  
T x_

"Not fucking likely." She muttered to herself as she shoved the phone back into her pocket.

"I was afraid you'd say something like that." Theo Raeken's velvety tenors cut through the darkness and made Elsa near enough jump out of her skin. With a yelp she moved to flick the porch light on, scowling at him when she found him lazing on the porch swing that her and Shane had insisted Viktor built when they were ten.

"What the fuck Raeken?!" She demanded; her voice a kind of whisper yell in an attempt to not attract the attention of any members of her family – Shane included. "Why are you at my house? And how do you even know where I live!?" She crossed the porch quickly, moving so that she was stood directly opposite him. Theo stood slowly, not reacting when the swing chair hit the back of his legs.

"I gave Shane a ride home last night." He explained quietly, as though it were nothing.

Elsa opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before she pointed her finger towards Theo. "That I have a fuck tonne of questions about as well, why are you hanging out with _my_ best friend? Why were you at that crime scene tonight? You do realise that you are shady as hell don't you? It's not attractive Theo it's just creepy."

Theo smirked, the kind of smirk that made Elsa want to punch him square in the face, and then he bit his lower lip. Internally Elsa rolled her eyes 180 degrees into the back of her skull, but on the outside her baby blue orbs deceived her, flickering to his lips before locking onto Theo's eyes once again. "But you do find me attractive don't you Elsa?" Even the way he said her name was appealing, she hated him, and she hated the fact that she _really didn't_ hate him even more.

She groaned, taking a defiant step away from him and pointing towards the street. "You need to leave, get the fuck off my porch and don't come back until you feel less like being a murdering gentleman caller and more like answering my questions."

Theo smirked again, but sensing her irritation he did as he was told, gently brushing her arm with his as he moved past her and down the steps of the porch. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Not if I see you first." She snapped back without really thinking, Theo shook his head gently as he laughed before tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans and strolling off down the street. "Argh!" Elsa expelled any further frustration by stamping her feet repeatedly against the wooden decking she was stood on, stopping only when the front door swung open to reveal her uncle scantily clad in nothing but a woman's floral silk bathrobe and a set of glass goggles that made his eyes look magnified to at least five times their actual size. He blinked his eyes, something that would have been quite comical to see had Elsa not been so wound up by the evenings events, and held out a plate of ginger thin biscuits – _Pepparkakor_ his favourite import from back home in Sweden. Elsa didn't say anything, she didn't have to, she was close enough to Viktor for him to know that whatever it was she was going through didn't need talking about just yet, it needed plying with ginger thins and hot tea, and that happened to be something he was excellent at. She took a couple from his plate as she walked over the threshold and straight into the kitchen, Viktor shut the front door behind her and after dramatically flipping his long blonde hair over his shoulder he followed his niece into the centre of their home.

Viktor Kirsch was an incredibly intuitive man, and whilst he brewed a fresh pot of tea his oceanic orbs occasionally flickered to his niece who sat chomping her way through his last packet of imported ginger thins with the determination of a girl possessed. Concern flourished upon his pointed features but he brushed it off with another flick of his golden locks, finally speaking as he placed a cup of tea in front of Elsa. "Did you speak to Shane?" He asked in broken English.

"Hmm?" Elsa enquired as she sipped her tea.

"At school, did you speak to Shane about the events of last night?"

"Oh that," Elsa nodded. "Yeah she said she went to the mall."

Viktor's lips formed a tight line and he sipped quietly on his tea, reminding Elsa very much of something she'd seen on _Tumblr_ once, an image of Kermit the frog drinking which implied her uncle wasn't telling her everything. She never thought she'd be able to thank the blogging website she was mildly addicted to for helping her understand her weird uncles actions, and yet here she was silently thanking the Kermit the frog meme. "Look Vik, I get that you want me to figure things out on my own. But it's been a really long day, its actually been a long couple of days. Could you just do me a solid and tell me whatever it is you're keeping from me?"

"Soon." Viktor promised, taking the last ginger thin from the plate on the counter top before disappearing through the door that led down to his self-contained basement flat.

Elsa watched him leave, her expression one of complete indifference. She was growing increasingly used to people keeping things from her, and at this point she wasn't even surprised anymore. "Oh sure, you take your time." She muttered, pushing herself up off the stool she'd been sat on, grabbing her cup of tea and heading up to her bedroom where she hoped Shane would be sound asleep so she could snuggle up to her without answering 101 questions.

Shane Campbell was asleep, though soundly wouldn't be how Elsa would have described it. She tossed and turned in Elsa's bed, her skin drenched in sweat and her brow furrowed so hard that lines had formed across her forehead. Placing her tea on the chest of drawers Elsa rushed to the bedside, placing a hand against Shane's skin and frowning when she felt the temperature of her, she was burning up. "Shane…come on babe wake up." Her best friend convulsed violently under her touch, her dark eyes snapping open and rolling up into the back of her head before closing again. "Shane!" Elsa shouted, louder this time and with a sense worried urgency. "Momma! Viktor!" Shane's body shuddered under Elsa's touch but no matter how hard the petite blonde tried she was unable to wake her best friend.

Viktor entered the room first, not flinching when the door slammed against the wall behind it and moved quickly to where Elsa was knelt beside the bed. He gently pushed his niece aside, muttering a string of seemingly unrelated words in Swedish, his left hand placed over Shane's forehead. When Lisa rushed into the bedroom a few seconds afterwards she brought her slender hand to her lips in a gasp before immediately wrapping them around her daughter the moment Elsa's smaller body slammed into her frame.

"What's happening to her?" Elsa sobbed into her mother's chest. Lisa stroked her daughters hair gently, doing her very best to soothe her whilst simultaneously raising her brows at her brother. Viktor looked from Shane to his sister and nodded, Lisa took that as a sign to wheel her reluctant daughter out of the room.

* * *

Viktor stayed by Shane's side the entire night, burning incense and muttering incoherently until her fever broke and she woke up groggy and disorientated. Elsa had cried when her uncle had let her back into her own bedroom, and had hugged Shane so hard that the brunette had made some snarky comment about not being able to breathe. It was decided the next morning, that Shane would stay home from school despite the fact that she assured them all it was a one off thing, nothing more than a particularly bad nightmare. Viktor had put his foot down, something that was decidedly uncharacteristic of him, and in their shock and confusion everyone had agreed to do as he said.

On arrival at Beacon Hills High School Elsa been quickly whisked away by one Lydia Martin who slipped her arm through the blondes and wheeled her off to the other side of campus where the rest of the pack were already waiting. On seeing the blonde, Scott McCall straightened up a little giving her a quick nod of hello before going back to whatever it was he had been talking about when Elsa had arrived.

"Where's her royal snarkiness this morning?" Stiles asked casually when Elsa and Lydia settled themselves into the small circle of friends. The smile that flashed upon his features told Elsa that his comment was in jest, and not meant in any malicious way at all, but her sleep deprivation and the altogether weirdness of the past few days caused her to frown.

" _Shane_ is at home. She had a bad night last night, something about a really trippy nightmare. I guess her and Oli went a little overboard on the _ganja_ or whatever." Elsa gave a light shrug, "she just needs to sleep it off. She'll be back in school tomorrow."

"Wait, Shane had trouble sleeping?" Lydia piped up, continuing after Elsa nodded slowly. "Tracy Stewart had trouble sleeping; only it wasn't just that. It was a real disorder, it was night terrors."

Leaning against the hood of his Jeep Stiles frowned, "well I guess now she is the night terror especially given that no one can find her." Malia, who was stood beside him gave a quick nod in agreement.

"Okay but Shane getting high and tripping out and Tracy Stewart straight up murdering her own father aren't exactly connected are they." Elsa stated, trying to assure herself more so than anyone else that the two facts were completely unrelated. Lydia shrugged, which wasn't nearly enough of a confirmation for Elsa who looked from the redhead to Scott frantically, as though asking him to back her up.

"Listen," Scott started, "I know that we're all tired and miserable…" He glanced towards Mason Hewitt who was stood between Scott and Elsa, a beaming smile upon his face. "Except for you?" Scott asked, raising a brow.

Mason straightened up. "Oh…sorry, this is all just mind blowing." He gestured with his hand towards Kira "you're a Kitsune, I don't even know what that is!"

Kira nodded slowly. "Yeah, well I'm still learning too."

Mason turned to Elsa with a grin. "…and you! You can set fire to things with your mind; do you know how awesome that is? What are you exactly, if you don't mind me asking?"

"We're not exactly sure on Elsa's genus and species as of yet." Lydia mused quietly to herself.

"Liam..." Stiles addressed the younger student that stood on the other side of Malia. "We said you could tell him, not invite him into the inner circle. Same goes for you Kirsch, how do you keep popping up?"

"Believe me I'm starting to wonder that myself."

"I'm part of the inner circle?" Mason was positively glowing with excitement.

"No." Liam and Stiles said in unison, glancing at each after they'd spoke before turning back to Mason and pulling a face.

Scott took a step forward, tapping his fingertips against the hood of Stiles' Jeep. "Guys, look back to Tracy. She's just one lone wolf, we can find her."

"One lone serial killing wolf." Malia said dryly.

"N-no she only killed one person you know, the other two were mauled." Stiles defended Tracy and from the opposite side of the Jeep Elsa squinted her eyes at him. She was so blown away by how casually these teenagers talked about these things, the only one of them that seemed half as confused as she did was Mason but even then he was way more excited than he was profoundly disturbed – which she found worrying in itself.

"So what are you…we going to do when we catch her?" Elsa asked quietly.

"I say we put her down." Malia, again, with the emotionless comment. Elsa's blue eyes went wide at the thought.

"You can't be serious." The blonde glanced at each face surrounding Stiles' Jeep, Kira and Lydia exchanged a glance that said 'maybe Malia has a point', Liam looked to Scott in a way that reminded Elsa of a kid asking their parents for permission to do something and Mason glanced at all of them before nodding slowly.

"Intense."

Scott, ever the voice of reason, shook his head. "Guys lets concentrate on finding her first. We'll figure out the rest later." With that, the rest of them pushed up off of the Jeep and slowly began to retrieve their backpacks from the floor, readying themselves for a day of schooling.

"What so that's it? Pack meeting over?" Elsa questioned, looking to Scott for confirmation. He nodded.

"Unless you have anything you need to say?"

"Well yeah, actually…more of a question really." Opposite her Stiles dropped his bag back to the floor and the three girls separated from whatever small talk they'd initiated. "Is…is Theo Raeken a good guy or a bad guy? Because like I'm getting totally mixed signals from all of you and I just wanted us all to be on the same page."

"What?" Liam asked.

"Uhmmm…" Malia's thoughts trailed off into silence.

"Seriously?" Stiles asked, pulling a face that said 'obviously not.'

"Well I for one," Mason piped up with a grin "think that he is a very good…looking guy."

Elsa and Malia both nodded, Stiles stared at his girlfriend as though taking personal offence in her agreeing with Mason.

"Okay, let's just get to class." Scott suggested, securing the strap of his backpack on his shoulder.

Elsa nodded slowly, not entirely satisfied that no one had answered her question, but happy in the knowledge that her and Mason Hewitt had a lot more in common now than they did this time yesterday. "Okay fine but Mason has a point, let's bring this up again at next week's meeting." With that the pack disbanded, Elsa linked an arm through Masons and walked with him to her first class. The pair had never spoken before today, but something about his blind optimism comforted reminded her of herself, and that was very comforting.

It was with great reluctance that Elsa settled herself down beside Theo Raeken in her AP Biology class, made even more uncomfortable by the grade she'd received on her quiz. Theo glanced towards his substantially higher grade and smirked, but said nothing, something which only served to infuriate Elsa.

"Nice to see where your priorities are Scott, since you have such a good grasp of the subject how about you lead us in a review of last night's reading?" The voice of their biology professor cut through any silent tension – sexual or otherwise – and drew Elsa's attention to Scott McCall, whose expression currently resembled that of a deer in the headlights. He nodded slowly, frantically flicking through the pages of his heavily highlighted text book as he did so.

"Yeah, sure…" He muttered, somewhat distracted by Liam Dunbar who stood in the doorway to the classroom, waving his hands around like some crazed lunatic.

"Scott?"

"Sorry just looking for the page…" Scott lied, desperately trying to multi-task by doing as his professor asked, and listening to what Liam had to say.

Theo listened too and Elsa noticed. "What did he say?" She whispered, leaning slightly closer to Theo in an attempt not to draw attention to them.

"What did who say?"

"Liam, look I know you have the Spidey Senses as well so just tell me."

"What's in it for me?"

"How about I don't set you on fire?"

"If I really believed that you could do that at will, I might've been scared."

Elsa used the sound of the fire alarm as an excuse to grab her heaviest text book and whack Theo across the arm with it. He smirked and she glared at him.

"Alright, everyone, don't rush it's probably just a drill." Their professor explained calmly, but the way Scott McCall bolted out of the classroom told Elsa otherwise.

In typical Lydia fashion, and in a way that was rapidly becoming the norm when it came to Elsa Kirsch, Lydia Martin linked her arm through Elsa's the second the blonde had gathered her things from her work bench. Wheeling Elsa out of the room along with Kira without another word until they met Liam in the corridor.

"They're taking her to the animal clinic?" Kira asked.

"Yeah to see if Deaton can figure out what's wrong with her."

"What's wrong with her is that she killed to people." Lydia whispered, Elsa nodded quickly beside her. "Her father and according to Parrish her psychiatrist."

"Parrish, the cop? Since when do we get updates directly from the Sheriff's office?" Elsa asked. A hint of a blush formed across the apples of Lydia's cheeks as she shrugged off Elsa's question.

"Isn't there anyone else we can talk to? Doesn't she have a mom or any family?" Kira questioned. Liam responded with a blank look, one that Elsa matched.

"Or her alpha? She's a werewolf…she has an alpha right?" Lydia suggested. "Anyone know if anyone new has moved into Beacon Hills?"

"No…but there's an old one, one of the oldest." A wistful look flashed across Kira's features and Liam and Lydia nodded in agreement, something that only served to remind Elsa just how new she was to this. She literally didn't have a clue what was happening right now. "We know her." Kira explained for Elsa's sake.

"…and her pack." Liam said, somewhat reluctantly.

"Okay, Liam you go and talk to Brett whilst Elsa, Kira and I will go to Tracy's house. Try and figure out a little more about her."

Kira and Liam nodded, and Lydia moved to head off out the double doors that led to the schools parking lot. "Wait!" Elsa called out, making all three of them stop in their tracks. "You're just going to ditch school? I have a Spanish test this afternoon."

Lydia frowned. "Elsa are you coming or not?"

"Uhm, not…I don't have a wicked high GPA like you I can't just ditch school." She blinked slowly, her mouth hanging slightly ajar. Lydia rolled her eyes before nodding reluctantly.

"Fine, we'll text you if we need you."

With that the three of them disappeared out the door, leaving Elsa stood in the middle of the deserted hallway _. What the fuck have I gotten myself into?_ She thought.

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guys! I promised it wouldn't be that long before there was another update, and honestly I'm a little surprised myself that it was so quick. I'm very much back into the swing of Elsa and completely loving her again so here's chapter 8. As usual I really really hope you enjoy it! If you could review/follow/fave then that would mean the world to me. As always I'm over on tumblr (where my url is lydamartin) and if you ever want to post anything about Elsa on there if you used the tag 'Elsa Kirsch' then I'll see it because it's one of my tracked tags. Again thank you so so much for the continued support for this fic. I hope you like the direction its going, let me know your thoughts!**


	9. Chapter 9

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Teen Wolf, it's canon characters, storylines or dialogue. I do however own my OC Elsa Kirsch and any other OCs that make appearances in this fic.**

* * *

"I feel really bad." Oliver sighed as him and Elsa exited their Spanish class. Elsa shifted the weight of her backpack on her shoulder as she glanced up at her best friend, a momentary flash of confusion illuminating her features. The pair walked slowly through the corridors of Beacon Hills High, pushing their way past students who were rushing to get home at the end of the school day.

"I didn't think the test was that bad, it could've been a lot worse." Considering the fact that she'd been too busy discovering the supernatural world to study for the Spanish test she'd just endured in her final period, she was actually pretty proud of herself. She'd answered every question, she didn't doubt that a lot of them were wrong, but at least she'd written something.

Oliver tilted his head slightly, squinting at her before shaking his head. "No not the test, I'm pretty sure I scraped a C in that. No, I'm talking about Shane…"

"Oh she was fine this morning, just tired, don't worry about it."

"Yeah but I bought it, you know," he leaned a little closer to the shorter blonde, lowering his voice so that passers-by didn't hear him " _the weed_." His eyes bulged at the sound of the word and Elsa couldn't help but smirk. "Maybe it was a bad batch. Maybe I poisoned her."

"Or maybe Shane just isn't as hard core as she likes to let us think she is?"

Oli mulled over Elsa's suggestion for a moment and she laughed when he shook his head. "Shane's the most hard core person I know."

"You're right," Elsa agreed. "She puts us all to shame."

He nodded in agreement, pushing open the double doors that led out to the playing fields. Elsa had soccer practice today after school – yet another reason why she hadn't ditched school with Lydia and Kira to play detective and look into Tracy Stewart's life – and Oliver never missed the chance to watch the girls' soccer team practice from the bleachers. "You wanna do something tonight? Go see a movie or something? I feel like I've not seen you in ages." Oli asked nonchalantly, as the pair walked onto the playing field. His words were directed towards his best friend but his dark eyes had long since drifted towards the girls warming up on the soccer pitch, many of whom were sporting crop tops and short shorts thanks to the hot weather.

Elsa raised a brow, smacking him in the chest lightly, dragging his attention away from her team mates. "You're looking at me right now."

"You know what I mean." He chastised, feigning injury by rubbing at the spot on his chest where her fist had made contact. "You're spending a bunch of time with McCall and his weird group of friends, I miss you and I know that Shane does too…"

Elsa felt a pang in her chest, it was guilt. Guilt that she was progressively spending less and less time with her two very best friends in favour of a bunch of supernatural tearaways who Elsa was almost certain had no clue what they were doing half of the time. And guilt that she still hadn't told Oliver the truth about what had really been happening these past few days. It wasn't that she didn't think he'd believe her, she was pretty sure he'd believe that the sky was red if Elsa told him it was, it was that she was afraid of what might happen to him should he know the truth. Despite the fact that she told herself Shane and Tracy Stewart's night terrors were not connected, she couldn't help but feel as though perhaps they were, and perhaps it was her fault.

"Hey Else, are you listening to me?" Oliver grumbled, forcefully dragging Elsa from her thoughts.

"What?" She asked, before rushing to answer his question. "No, I mean, yeah let's do something. Shane's on house arrest though, Vik's orders, so maybe come round tonight? I've actually got something I want to talk to you about…"

"Ohh, sounds serious." He joked, and Elsa frowned. She turned away from him, walking backwards towards the centre of the pitch. She pulled her t-shirt up and over her head and kicked off her jeans, revealing the grey Nike Sports bra and matching shorts she'd changed into before their Spanish class.

"Yeah, something like that." She shrugged, pulling a face at Oliver when he raked his eyes across her toned physique. "Don't be gross Blackwood, and sit at the back of the bleachers I don't want you scaring the girls!" With that she turned away from him and jogged lightly towards her team mates.

The Beacon Hills High school female soccer team was a mixed bunch, they were an entire group of girls all hailing from different social cliques who came together three times a week to unite as an unstoppable sporting force, and Elsa Kirsch – to her unending surprise – was their captain. Elsa tied her hair up into a ponytail, something she only did when she was playing soccer and something which told everyone that she meant business, and surveyed her team. There were a few new faces, freshmen who had tried out for the team on the first day of school, and then there were what Elsa liked to call her 'golden oldies', girls she had been playing alongside since preschool, who if it were not for Shane and Oliver, Elsa would absolutely consider her best friends.

"Alright ladies, good afternoon." She bellowed, grabbing the attention of every one of the girls, all of whom turned to look at her. "For those of you who already know me, welcome back, I hope you had a great summer. For those of you who don't I'm Elsa, and for reasons unbeknownst to me I've been elected as your captain this year. You can call me Elsa, Kirsch, Captain, your majesty, mom…" Her voice trailed off and she grinned when a couple of the other girls chuckled at her. A few of the younger girls exchanged glances, unsure as to whether or not this blonde chick in her full Nike kit was actually being serious or not. "Relax newbies I'm joking." She assured them, smirking when they visibly relaxed. "It'll be a short practice tonight so don't worry, I just want to see where everyone fits within in the team. I know we're in need of a new striker after Britney graduated last year so that spot is open if anyone thinks they can fill those sneakers."

There was a murmur of conversation amongst the girls and Elsa took the time to glance at each girl in turn, stopping when she reached Hayden Romero who was her first choice for Britney's replacement. There was something off about Hayden this afternoon Elsa thought, the usually bubbly Latina was positively silent, getting lost amongst the louder voices of the other girls. "Okay so we'll start with a couple of laps of the pitch, just to warm up then we'll head straight into a penalty shoot-out sound good?" Elsa asked, rolling her eyes when the team groaned at the idea of doing laps. "Listen, it's either that or you can all write me a detailed essay explaining the off side rule, it's up to you." It took a few seconds but eventually the girls took off, their pace picking up as each one decided to race the person in front of her. Before Hayden managed to kick off and join the group Elsa caught a light hold of her wrist. "Hayden, can we talk?"

Hayden snatched her wrist out of Elsa's hand, holding it close to her chest, her dark eyes wide. She only lowered it to her side when she caught sight of Elsa's concerned expression. "Uh, yeah, sorry what's up?" She asked quietly.

"I heard about what happened in your history class this morning; I just wanted to make sure you're alright?"

The brunette watched her carefully, doing her very best to decipher whether there were any hidden meanings to Elsa's question. Did her team captain know what had happened to her this morning, how the cut on her wrist - which she'd sustained courtesy of one Tracy Stewart – had disappeared before her eyes? Hayden didn't think that Elsa would believe her if she told her the truth, and so she simply lied. "Yeah I'm fine, I mean it was weird but I'm over it you know."

"You good to play?" Elsa asked, genuine concern lacing her tones. She smiled when Hayden nodded. "Excellent cause I've got my eye on you for our new striker Romero."

For a brief moment Hayden forgot about what had happened to her earlier that day, and instead she lunged herself at Elsa, wrapping her arms around the blondes neck and giving her a tight hug. "Are you kidding oh my god Elsa!" She beamed before pulling away from the hug, a soft blush peppering her tan cheeks. "Can you do that though? Aren't positions and stuff decided by Coach Finstock?"

"Coach has been in rehab for over a year, I'm pretty sure I can do whatever I like." Hayden grinned again and Elsa laughed, nodding her head towards the rest of the girls who were nearing them and their second lap of the pitch. "Don't think I'm going to let you slack though, get going." The brunette didn't need to be told twice, she bounded off after the rest of the girls, looking considerably happier than she had done only minutes earlier.

* * *

"You're good at that you know." Oliver said as the pair walked away from the soccer pitch and towards his car after practice had finished, Elsa pulled a face and Oli rushed to explain himself. "I mean those girls love you, they fucking run laps for you. McCall hasn't been to practice in months and I'm pretty sure if he asked me to run a lap I'd laugh in his face."

"Scott has a lot going on, I'm not sure lacrosse is his priority." Elsa defended Scott, unable to hide the small smile that threatened to lighten up her features at the mere thought of him.

"Well it should be, I'm going to college on a lacrosse scholarship and we haven't won a game in months. The _Cyclones_ used to be force to be reckoned with; when Jackson was captain we were national champions, now we're a joke." He sighed dramatically. "Not to mention the fact that we've lost Lahey as well, and Mahealani seems to have dropped off the face of the earth."

Elsa nodded slowly as the pair walked towards Oliver's car. She didn't speak again until he unlocked it and she'd climbed into the passenger seat, she waited for him to get in on his side before she turned to him, her expression serious. "It's this town. It's always been weird." She offered an excuse and Oliver nodded in agreement.

"It's a shit show, try and tell me one other school where as many students have died under mysterious circumstances. I bet you can't."

"Uhh…Hogwarts?" Elsa suggested, making Oli laugh.

"Honestly, at this point I wouldn't even be surprised if Voldemort himself turned up and announced that Scott McCall was the chosen one…all roads lead back to McCall." He turned the key in the ignition and raised his brows at Elsa who turned away from him, resting her head against the glass of the window, watching the trees that lined the streets blur as Oli drove across town to the Kirsch house.

"Do you really think that?" Elsa asked as they pulled up on her drive way, Oliver's Toyota was by no means new, but it looked positively futuristic parked up alongside the ancient tin can on wheels that Viktor Kirsch drove. "Do you think there's something weird going on with Scott?"

Oliver pulled a face, resting his arm on top of the steering wheel and turning his upper body to face his best friend. "I _know_ that there's something weird going on with Scott, everyone knows there's something we just don't know what it is exactly. I also know that you seemed to have gotten dragged into it." Elsa feigned confusion but Oli merely shook his head. "I've known you long enough to know when you're keeping something from me E, and look it's fine you can tell me whenever you're ready, I just want you to be careful around him. Too many people close to McCall have gotten hurt and I don't want you to be the next one."

Elsa sat back in her seat, astonished by the entire exchange she'd just had with her oldest and dearest friend. She'd been so uptight, worrying about how to tell Oliver that there was something weird going on with her, that she never thought that he'd have noticed it all by himself; she really didn't give him enough credit. Her silence didn't go unnoticed and Oliver sighed, reaching across the care to take a small lock of her hair in his hands, he gave it a light tug – something that was actually meant as a display of affection and one that he'd been doing since they were children – and smiled at her.

"Look, we can leave it for tonight. Let's just go inside, see Shane, order a pizza and watch some trash TV?"

Elsa nodded slowly. "Sounds good."

Oliver grinned a toothy comic grin at her and moved to clamber out the car. Elsa followed suit, grabbing her backpack which she'd thrown into the back seat and climbing out of the passenger side door.

"Oh thank god!" She heard Shane Campbell before she saw her, or rather felt her as the brunette ran full force into her best friend. Wrapping her arms around Elsa and squeezing her as though they'd been apart for years and not just a few hours. "I forgot you had soccer after school, I've missed you so much all day. I have been so bored. There is only so much mah-jong I can play with Vik before I want to throw myself off the lookout point." Shane's words came out as a fast jumbled mess, and Elsa simply laughed, stroking Shane's head affectionately and hugging her back just as hard.

"It's not even been a whole day." She teased, laughing again when Shane looked up at her through shocked eyes.

"It is the longest we have spent apart since that time I went to visit my mom like three years ago. I thought I was dying, you're like my left leg, do you know what it's like to lose your left leg?"

"I mean, not personally…." Elsa mused, "I missed you too."

"Are you feeling better?" Oliver piped up as he walked around the hood of the car to join the two girls. Shane released Elsa and immediately moved to hug him too. Elsa couldn't help but smile at the way the pair of them lit up the moment they embraced, it was so cute that it was almost sickening to look at.

"I am now." Shane chirped, taking both their hands and dragging them into the house. "But if I never seen Viktor and his damn loincloth again it will be too fucking soon."

* * *

"I am so full, it's gross look at me." Shane announced, climbing up from the sofa and pulling her shirt up to reveal her completely flat stomach. Elsa and Oli exchanged a glance and Shane did her very best to stick her none existent stomach out as far as she could. "I mean, talk about third trimester am I right?"

Elsa leaned forward, stroking Shane's stomach affectionately. "Oh Pepperoni Blackwood, I am so excited to be your aunt." She cooed, grinning when both Shane and Oliver blushed.

"So uh, another episode?" Oli asked, changing the subject. Shane nodded, pulling her shirt back down and flopping onto the couch between her two best friends. She shot a glare in Elsa's direction and the blonde raised her brows as if to say ' _what?_ ' before smirking when Oliver instinctively wrapped his arm around Shane's shoulders.

"Someone's phone is vibrating." Shane announced, halfway through the three of them singing along to the opening credits of yet another episode of _Orange Is The New Black._ Elsa patted down her pockets, resigning herself to the fact that it wasn't her phone when she couldn't find it on her person, Oli shrugged, muttering something about his battery dying hours ago. "Well it's not mine, Calamari got hold of mine this morning and I've not seen or heard it since."

Elsa glanced at the pug she and Shane had been bought two years ago as a joint Christmas present. He was curled up in his basket beside the window, his small feet twitching every now and then. Calamari snorted in his sleep and she couldn't help but laugh. "We'll find it later…" She mused, turning her attention back to the TV, much to Shane's displeasure.

"No, can you please just answer your phone it's so annoying and loud."

"The only thing that is annoying and loud is you." Oli muttered, turning the volume up on the television.

"Seriously can you not hear that?" Shane whined, pushing Elsa off the sofa in a desperate attempt to force her to retrieve her phone. "It sounds like it's coming from the kitchen."

Elsa stumbled as she was pushed from her previously very comfortable seated position, and had to use the arm of the sofa to steady herself. She had planned to simply sit back down, but Shane throwing her legs up into Elsa's place prevented her from doing so, and when the brunette pointed an angry finger towards the door Elsa threw her hands up in mock defeat. She couldn't hear her phone, and part of her didn't think Shane could either, _she probably wants to be alone with Oli_ , she thought as she ducked out of the room, wandering slowly towards the kitchen. True to Shane's word her phone lay face down on the counter top of the island in the centre of the room, right next to the now empty pizza boxes that had been delivered to the trio less than an hour previously. Wiping any residual pizza grease from her fingers onto the back of her jeans Elsa picked up the phone, frowning when she turned it over and saw a multitude of messages.

 ** _LYDIA MARTIN:_**  
 _S.O.S_

 ** _KIRA YUKIMURA:_**  
 _Meet us at the Sheriff's station asap x_

Elsa read and reread the messages a handful of times, tapping her fingertips along the edge of the phone as she tried to make sense of the texts before finally tucking the phone safely away in her pocket and hurrying back to the TV room where Shane and Oli were still watching the same episode she'd left them with.

"Did you get it?" Shane asked, sensing Elsa's presence in the room. Elsa pulled a face, part of her wanted to ask when Shane's hearing got so good, but a bigger part of her knew she had to get out of the house and to the Sheriff's station across town.

"Uh yeah I did, it's Lydia…and Kira actually."

"Oh yeah, what do they want?" Shane asked again, her gaze still set firmly on the television set.

"Some kind of emergency, they need me to go to the Sheriff's station."

As though it were rehearsed Oliver and Shane groaned in perfect unison, their heads turning in an eerily synchronised way to look at Elsa who stood in the doorway. "You're going to ditch us again?" Oli asked bluntly, not bothering to sugar coat it.

"Are you forgetting that we are team _Shelsa_?" Shane was cut off by Oliver clearing his throat and rushed to correct herself. "Sorry team S _helsiver_."

" _Ellydira_ is a very new friendship and not one I think calls for dropping all your plans just because you get one measly text." Oli stated very matter of factly. Elsa was tempted to correct him, she'd received far more than one text from Lydia and Kira respectively, but something told her that her best friends didn't really want to hear it. "At least finish this episode with us, and then if you really need to go I will drive you across town myself?"

His offer was a good one, without a car of her own all Elsa had to get across town was her bicycle, and as much as she had enjoyed riding it as a child, the pain she got in her butt from sitting on that damn plastic seat was honestly not worth the time spent riding instead of walking. Well aware that they'd talked Elsa around without the need for much persuasion, Shane and Oli high fived in a small display of celebration and Shane patted the empty space on the sofa beside her, urging her best friend to take a seat and get comfortable.

* * *

Two episodes of _Orange Is The New Black_ and eight texts from Lydia later Oliver Blackwood's black Ford pulled up alongside Lydia's car in the parking lot of the Sheriff's station. Oli leaned his elbows on the steering wheel, peering out the windscreen towards the building with a frown. "Doesn't look like much of an emergency."

Elsa, who was sat beside him in the passenger seat, murmured a sound of agreement. "I don't think they'd have text me so much if there wasn't something up."

"You want me to come in with you?" Oli asked, but Elsa shook her head.

"No, no, you go home. I know you promised Luke you'd help him with his homework and besides," she motioned her head towards the back seat where Shane appeared, grinning in the dark. "I've got back up."

"Yes you do." Shane chirped.

"Alright Campbell, let's go get this over with."

The girls took turns to kiss Oliver goodbye, thanking him for the ride and assuring him that they'd get Lydia to drive them home whenever they got finished doing whatever it was they'd been summoned for, and waved him out of the parking lot before heading into the station.

From the outside the station nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, the lights were on and Elsa could make out the silhouettes of the deputies sitting at their desks. The only thing that seemed marginally concerning was the silence, it was unusually quiet. Elsa hadn't spent a whole lot of time in police stations but she figured that there would be more shouting coming from prisoners or at the very least the quiet hum of first responders answering the 911 phone calls. To her surprise there was none of that, in fact it was positively silent.

She knocked on the glass panel of the door that led into the reception, but didn't bother to wait for anyone to invite her in. Instead she pushed the door open and stepped inside with a not too uncharacteristic air of confidence. "Knock, knock only me." She called out, smiling at Lydia and Kira who were stood side by side a little way away from where she stood. When neither one of them spoke Elsa continued. "Sorry I'm late, I know your text said urgent but Shane wanted to finish the new _Orange Is The New Black_ episode so…"

Still Lydia and Kira did not speak, and when Shane popped her head around the door Elsa offered her a simple shrug. "Well everything seems to be pretty chill here." Elsa mused, quickly growing tired of the sound of her own voice. Sure, she'd waited an hour or so to actually come when she was called but that was no excuse for Lydia and Kira to be icing her out the way they were. Turning away from Shane the blonde watched her new friends carefully, and it took a good few seconds for her gaze to follow theirs up on to the ceiling. "Holy fuck!" She yelped, taking a small step backwards, her arms instinctively moving out to shield Shane who was still stood behind her. Up on the ceiling something stared down at her, its teeth elongated, its eyes a vibrant yellow and its skin covered in what appeared to be scales. The only thing that gave Tracy Stewart away was her long dark hair, which even now was styled to perfection, which only served to agitate Elsa further. "Is that Tracy Stewart?" She asked incredulously, despite knowing the answer to her question was a resounding yes.

Tracy dropped down from the ceiling, landing perfectly on her two bare feet. She took one look at Shane before turning to her blonde companion and snarling at Elsa the moment she straightened up. In that moment it was as though everything slowed down, Tracy inched closer towards her and Elsa knew instantly that she was in danger, and more importantly so was Shane. When the all too familiar tingling sensation began pricking at the skin of her fingertips, slowly licking its way up her hands and arms, for the first time since it had begun Elsa didn't try to fight it, instead she closed her eyes, steadied her breathing and embraced it.

"Mom run!" Lydia's scream forced Elsa to open her eyes and when she did, they were not her usual icy blue but instead a deep and fiery orange.

Kira pulled her belt from her jean shorts, smirking when it instantly went ridged, forming a sharp edged sword. Twirling the katana expertly in her hands Kira lunged for Tracy who dodged the blow in a near miss. Elsa used the distraction of Kira to her advantage; focusing all her energy and concentration on the feeling those rose from the pit of her stomach. Unlike the first time she'd felt it, now it didn't hurt, she couldn't feel the heat of the small ball of fire that materialised when she held her hand out in front of her and when she brought her other hand up to join it, manipulating the fire felt like second nature.

Kira and Tracy sparred, each one taking a swing at the other and each one narrowly missing each time. Elsa continued to work on the embers that flickered between her palms, fashioning the flames into a perfect sphere, it was only when Tracy's tail flicked out, striking Lydia in the stomach that Elsa thrust her hands outwards, hurling the fireball towards Tracy and hitting her square in the chest just as Lydia fell to the floor, crimson blood soaking her light pink sweater.

Tracy roared, turning to Elsa and bearing her teeth. Behind her Kira raised her sword high above her head. A fiery spectre seemed to emanate from the girl, and Elsa watched it with a mixture of horror and intrigue. In that moment the world sped up again, and in one fell swoop Kira threw down her sword severing the long tail that seemed to be growing out of Tracy Stewart's spine.

"Shiiiiiit." Elsa heard Shane mutter under her breath as she backed up impossibly closer to the wall behind her before rushing to Lydia's side after Tracy darted out of the room.

Kira's chest rose and fell in quick succession, and the fiery aura that surrounded her grew brighter with each passing moment. Taking a few tentative steps towards her friend Elsa held out a hand, edging closer and relishing in the warmth that the fire surrounding Kira brought when she touched it. Elsa closed her hand slowly, curling it towards herself. With her movements the fire surrounding Kira diminished, and the searing pain that travelled up Elsa's arm told her that she was absorbing it, or at the very least helping Kira to extinguish it – though she couldn't have explained how she'd done it if she was asked. Once all and any fire had been extinguished the previously brightly lit police station seemed positively pitch black, and for a second after her eyes had returned to their usual colour Elsa struggled to see in the artificial light that the LED light bulbs provided. She was out of breath and weary, but they were not out of the woods yet.

"Guys, I'm not a doctor but this looks bad. Like really, really bad." Shane's voice was manic as she pressed her hands against Lydia's wound, doing her very best to stem the bleeding. Kira and Elsa exchanged a glance, one that said _I don't have any idea what that was but thanks for helping_ before the pair of them rushed to Lydia's side, dropping to their knees beside Shane. Elsa took Lydia's hand in hers, stroking her thumb gently over Lydia's fingers in what she hoped was a reassuring way, whilst Kira worked beside Shane, pressing down on the wound in Lydia's stomach which was gushing with an unnerving amount of blood.

When Malia came running into the station moments later, Elsa visibly relaxed. Where there was Malia Tate there was Stiles Stilinski, and where there was Stiles there was Scott. And Scott McCall would know what to do. Elsa had every faith in him.

"Malia…" Lydia's voice was weak but it drew the attention of the werecoyote who had previously been too absorbed in looking at the devastation that had once been the Beacon Hills Sheriff department to actually notice her friend bleeding out on the linoleum flooring.

"Lydia?!" She asked, her voice laced with worried urgency.

"I'm ok, it's not, it's not as bad as it looks…" Lydia lied.

"Yeah." Shane agreed. "It's just a flesh wound." Elsa didn't know who Shane was trying to convince, Malia, Lydia or herself. But she smiled at her friend regardless and Shane returned it meekly.

"Malia, listen Tracy she thinks, she thinks she's asleep she thinks she's dreaming….it's a night terror." Lydia's voice faltered as the pain washed over her body. Malia frowned and shook her head.

"I don't know what that mea-"

"She's not dreaming. She's not asleep. Get her to understand." Lydia explained.

Elsa gently dropped Lydia's hand from her own, smiling at Kira when the kitsune immediately took over what Elsa had previously been doing. "Malia," Elsa stood up, looking seriously at Malia whose frantic eyes flickered from Lydia on the floor to Elsa Kirsch who was slowly approaching her. "They're in the basement." Elsa said.

"They?"

"Tracy, and Lydia's mom."

Malia nodded when Elsa motioned her head towards the door on the opposite side of the room and without another word the two girls disappeared through the door and down the stairs to the basement. It didn't take them long to find Tracy, who had long since found Natalie Martin and paralysed her the same way she had done all the deputies in the station. Catching sight of the two girls, Tracy dropped Natalie's leg – which she had been using to drag her across the floor to god only knows where – and kicked Lydia's mom out of the way. Elsa watched Mrs Martin roll a couple of times before coming to an abrupt stop against a stone wall, her eyes open but completely glazed over. Malia instinctively flicked out her claws and Elsa found herself wishing she had something more than the occasionally unruly fireball to defend herself with.

Tracy's eyes flashed a dangerous yellow, and beside Elsa, Malia shifted into her werecoyote form, protruding eyebrows, elongated teeth and vibrant blue eyes. The two girls snarled at one another in a raw, animalistic way and only stopped when one of Elsa's unruly fireballs hit Tracy in the leg, singeing a hole in the pyjama bottoms she was wearing. "Malia, get a hold of her. We have to make her understand that she isn't asleep."

Malia nodded, pushing Tracy to the ground, using her hands to pin Tracy's arms above her head, and pushing her knee against the brunette's throat, restricting her breathing.

"Malia…" Elsa warned as Tracy began to shift back to her usual, very much harmless, self. "Malia she can't breathe. Stop!"

The werecoyote glanced over her shoulder towards Elsa, whose wide eyes had returned to their usual oceanic blue, and growled only to be met with a stern look from Elsa.

"Malia she doesn't want to do this, she thinks she's dreaming. We have to make her understand. Let her go."

A few agonising moments passed by before Malia released Tracy from her choke hold. Beneath her the brunette coughed and spluttered, desperately trying to get the air that she had been deprived for the last few minutes into her lungs. She rolled over away from her two assailants, crawling until her back was pressed up against some old filing cabinets.

"Tracy…" Elsa said quietly, taking a small step towards her. Malia moved with her, nodding when Elsa offered her a small smile.

"Tracy, hey, look at me." Just as Malia had shifted back into her human form, her voice too had shifted and was now soft, almost to the point of being soothing, and had Elsa not been positively traumatised by everything that had happened within the past twenty minutes she would have been bursting with pride at the werecoyote's change of heart. Tracy responded to the sound of her name by staring through large, terrified eyes at the two girls in front of her. Confusion flourished upon her, still slightly scaly, features and Malia hurried to explain things to her. "You're not dreaming, this is real a-all of this is real. You get it? You get that. You're not dreaming Tracy."

"What's happening to me?" Tracy asked.

As if out of nowhere a masked figure appeared, a large needle held in what appeared to be a mechanical hand. Elsa gasped, looking away for the fraction of a second that it took the creature to insert the needle into Tracy's ear canal. Malia lunged forward, only to be held back by another figure that emerged from the shadows. Elsa raised a flaming hand, readying herself to rain hell on whatever it was that was pumping Tracy full of foreign substances but screamed as her hand was crushed between the metallic fingers of a third figure who twisted her arm until the flames that danced in the palm of her hand were forcefully extinguished.

Both girls watched in horror as a silver liquid poured out of Tracy's mouth and her dark eyes rolled into the back of her head.

"Condition. Is. Terminal." The creature beside her said as it dropped Tracy Stewart's lifeless body to the ground.

With that, Elsa and Malia were released. Malia – who hadn't once taken her eyes off of Tracy – slid down the wall in defeat, whilst Elsa rushed to Tracy's side pressing her fingertips to the brunette's neck in a desperate attempt to find a pulse.

"What are they?" Elsa hissed at Malia, whose blank stare shifted from Tracy on the floor to the flickering light of the corridor ahead of them.

"Gone." Malia said.

* * *

 **A/N: Hey guyssssss! Look at Elsa getting a hold of her powers in times of crisis don't you just love it. Also I am so pleased to have been able to get a little more of the Shane/Elsa/Oli brot3 into this chapter, because honestly I adore their friendship so very very much. I just wanted to take the time here to thank you guys for all the reviews you leave on this fic, I can't quite believe that From Ashes is almost at 100 reviews! That is a milestone I never believed in a million years that I would reach but here we are! So thank you! As usual if you like to see any Elsa edits then head over to my blog on tumblr (lydamartin) alternatively search the Elsa Kirsch tag as they can usually be found in there. I also track that tag so if you ever want to tag either me or Elsa in anything then use that. Please feel free to follow/fave/review as those emails make my day and since I've started working a full time 9-5 jobs the little things like reading reviews on my lunch break are what get me through the day. Thank you again for the continued support, you guys are the greatest!**


	10. Chapter 10

"They can't have just disappeared." Elsa exclaimed as she stood in the narrow hallway that the three figures had vanished from. Around the corner Malia was still on the floor, her back pressed against the wall and her eyes trained on a lifeless Tracy Stewart. Elsa scratched her head before she turned back towards the werecoyote. "Actually, who am I kidding? I just shot fire out of my fingertips, so three masked creatures from the planet _what the fuck_ disappearing into thin air isn't entirely outside the realms of possibility. Maybe we should look for them maybe we should…"

When Malia didn't respond instead of carrying on, Elsa moved towards her, crouching down in front of the brunette and obstructing her view of Tracy on the floor behind them. "Hey Malia, are you okay?" Elsa asked, keeping her voice soft. She'd never seen a dead body before, let alone watched someone get murdered right in front of her eyes and internally Elsa Kirsch was completely freaking out, but her concern for Malia pushed all of those feelings aside.

Natalie Martin groaned on the other side of the room, stretching her limbs as she slowly but surely regained her mobility. When she sat up the looked at the two girls, one she knew to be good friends with her daughter, the other she had taught a few times when she subbed at the school last year. Elsa glanced over her shoulder towards her, and for a couple of moments the two simply stared at one another, before Natalie got shakily to her feet and hurried up the stairs desperate to get to the last place she'd seen Lydia. Elsa watched her climb the stairs, making sure that she didn't slip or lose her footing before she turned her full attention back to Malia. She reached out a reassuring hand, rubbing it gently across Malia's shoulder. "You wanna get up?" She asked, smiling half-heartedly when Malia nodded.

The two girls scrambled to their feet, each one using the others weight to help pull herself up. Once they were both stood they turned to Tracy, their arms still clinging to one another in what could only be described as a display of support, both emotionally and physically given the events of the evening. When Scott, Stiles the Sheriff and Scott's boss – a man Elsa only knew to be called Dr Deaton because he was the vet that treated Calamari when he swallowed a bee last summer and suffered an allergic reaction – the two girls turned to face them. Elsa released a sigh of relief at the sight of the alpha, she'd had every faith that he would arrive sooner or later, and she felt safer in his presence despite the fact that the threat had up and left long before he'd even arrived. Malia on the other hand tensed up, holding her hands up. "It wasn't me." She said quickly, her wild gaze flickering from Scott and Stiles, to Elsa beside her who gave her arm another reassuring rub – no one thought Malia had done this, or at least she hoped they didn't.

"What the hell happened to her?" She sheriff demanded.

"There were these people…" Malia began, quickly wiping away the tears that filled her eyes.

" _Things_." Elsa corrected.

"T-they had masks there was uhm, three of them. I-I think there were three."

"There were." Elsa nodded quickly.

"What are you talking about?" Stiles asked his girlfriend, taking a small step closer to the two girls.

"T-they were strong Stiles." Malia assured him, and Elsa couldn't help but be irritated by the way Stiles was staring at the two of them. Something about his body language was completely off, like he didn't believe a word they were saying. "They h-had a weapon." Malia continued, her voice faltering with emotion.

"We didn't do this." Elsa stated, her voice a little sterner than usual.

Stiles glanced between the two girls, before finally he nodded. "Okay."

"She's not changing back; we're going to need to get her out of here." Deaton was on the floor beside Tracy, her slender wrist in his hand as he checked for a pulse.

Elsa released Malia from her grasp and turned to face the veterinarian, Scott was beside him, his expression serious.

"Hey, absolutely not!" Said the Sheriff. "This is a crime scene. We call the coroner."

"I think the coroner might be very confused by this girl's severed reptilian tail." Dr Deaton's sarcasm was wicked fast and despite the severity of the situation Elsa was unable to stifle the small scoff that fell from her lips, earning herself a glare from Sheriff Stilinski.

"I don't care." Stiles' dad bellowed.

"Well you should, unless you're ready to hold a press conference announcing the presence of supernatural creatures in Beacon Hills?" The two men stared at each other for a long while, a kind of testosterone fuelled stalemate. During which Elsa and Scott made eye contact for the first time since he'd entered the room _. You okay?_ He mouthed at her, she responded with a simple nod.

"Dad he's right." Stiles admitted.

"Maybe we can change her back, you can do that right?" Elsa asked, directing her question towards Deaton. Until about two minutes ago she had thought he was your average run of the mill veterinarian, a nice enough guy, with a penchant for caring for sick animals, but something told her there was a lot more o Alan Deaton than the lab coat he hid behind at work. He shrugged.

"We could take her back to the clinic figure out if we can change her back there and then call the coroner?" Scott suggested.

"T-there is a line." The Sheriff began pacing around the dimly lit basement, "there is a line that we have to draw."

"Dad you've already crossed it… more than once."

"Sheriff please let me help," Deaton stood up "I've dealt with things like this before…"

Sheriff Stilinski turned away from them all, running a hand through his thinning hair as he weighed up his options. When he turned back towards them he shook his head, "just do it fast." He muttered against his better judgement.

The moment he muttered his approval they got to work, Deaton hooked his hands underneath Tracy's arms whilst Scott grabbed her feet and together the pair picked the girl up. Elsa took a step back, getting out of their way so they could carry Tracy up the stairs. She watched them walk past her, her gaze settling on Tracy's face before she turned and followed them up the stairs and back into the main office of the sheriff's department.

Upstairs the scene was chaotic; Shane, Kira and Mrs Martin were crouched around Lydia. Deputy Clarke – who Elsa knew was Hayden Romero's older sister, having seen her at multiple soccer games – stood dumbfounded in the corner of the room, _same_ Elsa thought as she looked at her. The final person Elsa saw was perhaps the last person she'd expected to and when he saw her emerge from the stair way he crossed the room towards her at a rather impressive pace.

Theo didn't know what to think, or really what he was doing. This wasn't part of the plan; Elsa being here, in harm's way was never what he had agreed to. His shock at seeing her was evident as it flashed across his handsome features, though when he thought about it he really should have known that she was around somewhere the moment he'd seen Shane Campbell when he arrived. A he neared her, the petite blonde instinctively took a step towards him and for the briefest of moments he thought she might throw her arms around him in an embrace, but it seemed that she thought better of it at the very last minute and instead chose to simply stand awkwardly in front of him.

"Are you okay?" Theo asked, his eyes widening slightly as he checked every inch of her for injuries. Without really thinking about his actions he took Elsa's face gently in his hands, his fingertips weaving their way into her blonde hair. Theo's blue eyes scanned her face before finally locking gaze with her own. "Are you hurt?" He asked, his tone quite serious. He would never admit to it, especially not to the people he was working for, but since the night that he arrived in Beacon Hills and first laid eyes on Elsa Kirsch she'd immediately become a problem for him. Theo Raeken wanted power and a pack, and the people that he worked for, the same people that had murdered Tracy Stewart, could offer him just that. But what Theo also wanted was currently standing right in front of him, her large blue eyes blinking slowly as they stared straight into his. Elsa was everything that Theo could never be, she was kind, friendly and full of hope for the future, she didn't see the same darkness in the world that he did and it was for that reason that he hadn't wanted her involved in this. Unfortunately for him, she was in so deep that escape was looking less and less likely with each passing day.

In any other situation Elsa would've wriggled out of his grasp, and chastised Theo for simply assuming that he had the right to put his hands on her. But something about the concern in his eyes and the way he was looking at her made her forget that she was supposed to hate this guy. "I'm okay. Really, I'm fine." She assured him, instinctively leaning her face into his hand as he stroked a tentative thumb across her cheekbone.

"If anything had happened to you…" Theo's voice trailed off into silence and he took a small step closer to her, he considered pressing his lips gently to her forehead before thinking better of it and pulling away completely, his hands leaving her face and falling limply to his sides. "You weren't supposed to be here." He finished quietly.

Around the room, those that were watching the scene stared. Shane raised a brow, and Scott and Stiles exchanged a glance. Stiles narrowed his eyes. "Well neither were you." He coughed out, interrupting the moment between Elsa and Theo completely.

Elsa suddenly became very aware of everyone else in the room, and after one last look at Theo she stepped away from him, sidestepping around him and moving to crouch beside Shane. She pulled her best friend into a tight embrace, burying her face in Shane's dark hair and wishing away the rest of the world.

"We're lucky that he was." Kira defended Theo, nodding towards Lydia and the makeshift tourniquet Theo had created using his belt. Theo turned to the kitsune and offered a small smile of thanks; Stiles ran a hand down his face and nodded reluctantly.

"Where the hell is the ambulance?" He muttered as Scott and Deaton disappeared out of the station carrying Tracy between them.

When it finally arrived ten or so minutes later, Mrs Martin went with Lydia in the ambulance, Stiles, Malia and Kira drove in the jeep and with Shane at the wheel Theo and Elsa drove Lydia's car out of the sheriff stations small parking lot and across town to Beacon Hills Memorial hospital where everyone piled into the waiting room to await news about Lydia's conditions.

No one spoke; instead they all sat on the uncomfortable chairs in complete and utter silence. Shane perched herself on the arm of Elsa's chair and gently ran her fingers through her best friends blonde hair, it was something she'd done for years and something she knew calmed Elsa down when she was stressed out over one thing or the next. She'd never had to do it to calm her down after witnessing a murder before but it seemed to be doing the trick just fine. Theo sat on the chair directly opposite Elsa, his hands clasped together, his chin resting against his knuckles and his elbows digging into his knees. Occasionally he'd glance upwards towards the blonde, and watch her carefully for a few moments, making sure that she was okay before redirecting his gaze back to the same spot on the floor. When Scott and Liam arrived Stiles stood up, and when Melissa McCall stepped into the waiting room so did everyone else.

"Stiles…" Melissa addressed only him, but everyone else moved to circle her regardless.

"How bad is it?" Stiles asked hurriedly.

"It could have been worse." Melissa assured him, and Stiles released a breath of relief. "Theo, nice going on that tourniquet you probably saved her life." She added.

Elsa glanced towards Theo, who looked uncharacteristically bashful. He nodded slowly as Melissa and his eyes widened slightly as he felt Elsa gently slip her hand into his own.

"You did good." She whispered, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze, Theo turned to her with a small smile before both of them turned their attention back to Melissa, this time hand in hand.

On the opposite side of the hallway Stiles watched the pair of them through suspicious eyes, and their handholding didn't go unnoticed by Scott either, whose dark gaze watched the way Elsa's thumb stroked gently against the back of Theo's hand. He only looked away when his mom spoke again.

"Alright she's about to go in for surgery, so it's gonna be a while."

Stiles tore his gaze away from Theo, turning back to Melissa and nodding ever so slightly.

"Any other supernatural details that I need to know about or should we just stitch her up and hope for the best?" Melissa asked.

"It was the tail." Kira stepped forward.

"Yeah." Elsa agreed.

A look of confusion flashed across Melissa's face and Scott hurried to explain it to his mom. "Tracy cut her with the tail…if that makes a difference."

"Okay." His mom nodded, securing her stethoscope around her neck as she walked away from the group of teenagers.

"But it wasn't just Tracy, t-there were the others." Malia piped up, it was the first time Elsa had heard the werecoyote speak since they'd been in the basement and she nodded in agreement.

"Yeah the guys in the masks." Elsa explained, frowning when Scott and Stiles exchanged a glance that told her that they didn't quite believe the two girls' story. "We're not lying." She added defiantly, Malia glanced at her and then back to Stiles, her eyes wide and pleading innocence.

"We never said that you were." Scott's voice didn't sound as reassuring as Elsa had hoped that it would, but the small smile he offered her would suffice, for now.

Soon after that they all returned to their seats, Shane perched once again on the arm of the chair, instinctively twirling locks of Elsa's blonde hair around in her fingers, and once again everyone was silent, each one of them lost in their own thoughts on the nights events. They stayed in the hospital until Lydia was wheeled out of the operating theatre and into her own private room. Assured by Melissa that the surgery was a resounding success, they were all asked as politely as possible to leave, to go home and get some rest, as of now the only people allowed into visit Lydia Martin were family and members of law enforcement.

"Should I call Oli?" Shane asked as she walked arm in arm with Elsa through the main doors of the hospital and out into the parking lot. Stiles had headed sleepily towards his jeep with Malia, Liam, Scott and Kira in tow but Elsa and Shane had lingered back – still not convinced that they were really part of the group despite having gone through just as much as everyone else tonight.

"No, no don't he'll have questions that I don't really feel like answering right now. I'll call Vik." Shane thought over her friend's words for a moment before nodding slowly. Elsa slipped her hand into her pocket, retrieving her phone and punching in her uncle's cell phone number. She turned away from Shane whilst the phone rang, it was late and she half expected Viktor not to pick up but to her surprise after only one ring she heard his voice at the other end of the line.

"Hej farbror" she greeted, doing her very best to keep her voice as breezy as possible. On the other end of the line Viktor Kirsch cleared his throat, greeting his niece with much more enthusiasm than a man who had just been woken up at almost two in the morning would usually do. "Me and Shane are at the hospital…no, we're both fine….yeah….we just need a ride home…I'll explain later….okay thank you Vik…adjö." She clicked the button to end the call, slipping the phone back into her pocket when she was finished and moving back to Shane's side, sliding her arm through Shane's, resting her chin on the brunette's shoulder. "He's on his way." She explained, and Shane nodded, resting her own head on top of Elsa's lightly.

"Do you guys need a ride home?" Scott called out, gesturing towards Stiles' jeep, much to his best friends displeasure. "We can all pile in I'm sure."

"I don't think so Scotty…" Stiles mused, making a point of counting the number of people that stood around his Jeep and then counting the number of chairs inside the blue car. Scott rolled his eyes, turning back to Elsa and offering her a meek smile.

"It's fine." She waved him off. "I've called my uncle; he's on his way now."

"Do you want us to wait till he gets here?" Scott suggested as everyone else piled into the Jeep. Elsa shook her head.

"We'll be fine."

"I'll stay with them till he gets here." Theo appeared out of the sliding glass doors that served as an entrance to Beacon Hills Memorial.

"Contrary to popular belief we are quite capable of standing around without supervision you know." Shane muttered, too tired to lift her head from its resting position against Elsa's, but not too tired to sass a couple of boys fighting over who got to be her best friend's white knight.

Scott and Theo stared intensely at one another for a short while before Scott finally broke face, pressing his lips together in a thin line and nodding his head once quickly. "Alright then, I'll see you guys at school tomorrow. I'm glad that you're both okay." With that he turned away from them, climbing into the Jeep where Stiles and the rest of his pack were ready to leave and waiting for him.

Theo tucked his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, a hint of a smirk etching itself upon his lips; he turned towards Elsa and Shane with a triumphant twirl, only to have the smirk wiped off his face when he was met with Shane's less than impressed expression. "Oh…oh you really don't want me to stay?" He asked, shocking even himself when he sounded genuinely hurt. "Elsa?" He asked quietly, taking a step closer to the blonde. Shane responded by wrapping a defiant arm around her best friend.

"It's been a long night." Shane stated simply.

Elsa, whose eyes had flickered to a sleepy close the moment she'd rested her head against Shane's shoulder, lifted her head slowly, her blue eyes fluttering open. "I just want to go home to bed." She said quietly and Theo nodded slowly at her words. "I'll see you at school tomorrow?"

"Sure, yeah of course. Okay…well then, I'll just uh…leave." He walked a few paces away from the two girls, stopping after a few metres and turning to glance at them over his shoulder.

"Goodnight Theo." Shane said coolly.

"Goodnight girls."

Elsa moved to rest her head on Shane's shoulder once more, her left arm snaking around her best friends waist for both warmth and as a symbol of emotional support. "Was that a dick move?" She wondered aloud. "Making him leave I mean."

"Probably." Shane agreed with a shrug, mirroring Elsa's movements and hugging the shorter blonde close to her body. "But the love triangle trope is done to death, you're better than that."

"It's only a love triangle if all three parties are interested."

"Believe me Scott McCall is more than interested." Shane said knowingly, despite Elsa not saying who it was she was talking about.

"You think?"

"Trust me, I know."

Elsa's blue eyes scanned Theo's frame appreciatively as he walked out of the hospital parking lot. "Don't get me wrong I really like Scott, and I've been crushing on him since I was like seven or eight…" Elsa released a small breath. "But there's something about Theo."

"Mmm I know what you mean, could be his abs, or that chiselled jawline. Might even be those swimming pool baby blues, sure as hell aint his personality though 'cause that's shady as fuck." Shane mused, stifling a laugh.

Elsa scoffed, nudging Shane with her elbow. "He's not like that with me, a bit of a cocky asshole sure, but I don't think he's a bad guy."

"We'll see." Shane narrowed her eyes slightly as she watched Theo finally disappear out of the parking lot. She mulled over Elsa's words, and frowned at the thought of them. She didn't know Theo Raeken, not really, but there was something about him that caused a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. That, and the fact that he'd been fairly prominent in the nightmare she'd experienced the night before, not that she'd had the chance to mention that to Elsa yet.

* * *

After almost a week of getting next to no sleep, learning to harness her newly found supernatural abilities and generally having a quarter life crisis, the next day Elsa was barely conscious in her AP Biology class, let alone paying attention and so when the teacher called on Theo, who was sat beside her, to answer a question she jumped. Her jerking movement caused the notes that she'd been half-heartedly working on for the past hour or so to scatter across the table and their biology teacher raised a brow.

"If 99.9% of our DNA sequence is the same as other humans, what could account for the other 0.1% difference?" Their biology teacher repeated herself, turning away from the chalkboard at the room to face the class. "Theo?"

"Uhm, nucleotides." Theo answered correctly, much to the shock of Scott McCall who turned to glance at his fellow student, a look of sheer disbelief washing over his features. Elsa, who had long since gone back to resting her head against her arms, gave Theo a small thumbs up as a sign of congratulations.

"That's right." Mrs Finch explained, offering Theo a smile. When Kira raised a steady hand Mrs Finch turned her attention towards her. "Yes Kira?"

"Can there be more than one species in the same DNA?" Kira asked, an odd question Elsa thought and one that peaked the blonde's interest so much so that she actually raised her head from the desk, interested to find out the answer.

"No." Mrs Finch replied quite simply, moving to explain herself when she was met with a sea of blank faces. "But there can be multiple sets of DNA in the same individual, we call that a chimera. Anyone know where that term comes from?" Surprising both Mrs Finch and herself, Elsa raised a sleepy hand. "Yes Elsa?"

"It's from Greek mythology; the chimera was a female monster, part lion part goat and part snake. She breathed fire and was the sibling of Cerberus, you know the three headed dog from the Harry Potter books? Yeah, the chimera was pretty badass I'd say." The class erupted into a quiet buzz of laughter, much to Mrs Finch's displeasure.

"Okay thank you for that history lesson Miss Kirsch…though not entirely scientifically accurate that does get us on to the topic of genetic mutation and as you'd know from the reading DNA is a fragile molecule isn't it Scott?" Scott glanced up from the piece of paper he'd been furiously writing notes on, Elsa stretched forwards in her stool, trying her very best to get a glance at the notepad in front of him but failing miserably. "Or did you miss last night's assigned reading?"

"Kind of."

"Kind of or yes?"

"Mostly yes." Scott admitted.

"Well then, thank you for another helpful transition in topic, drop forms!" Mrs Finch collected a handful of papers from her desk at the front of the class and moved around the room to distribute a few to specific students. "All those now acutely aware that they do not belong in this class you should fill his out. The rest will be on my desk." She placed the rest of the forms down with a thud and then took a step away from them, indicating the end of class.

"What're you doing for your free period?" Elsa asked Theo as she stood up, packing her books and notepads away into her tattered old backpack. Theo smiled at her whilst he did the same.

"Are you asking me on a date Elsa Kirsch?" He teased.

Praying that the warmth in her cheeks wasn't as blindingly obvious as she thought it was Elsa shook her head. "It was just a question, you know, casual conversation. I can go back to ignoring your existence if you'd like?"

Theo laughed, securing the strap of his backpack over his shoulder. "I wouldn't like that at all."

"Well then, what are you doing in free period?"

"I've actually got a few things to do."

"Oh…" Elsa stepped around their work bench, out of the corner of her eye she watched Scott pick up a drop out form and made a mental note to ask him about it later. "Oh right, okay then." She turned back to Theo who shook his head at her.

"It's uh, work stuff. My boss is a real hardass so I can't exactly skip just to hang out with a cute girl."

She blushed again and mentally cursed herself for doing so, never in her life had Elsa Kirsch been such a girly girl and yet here she was. "Well then, tell your boss he is an asshole from me."

Theo laughed. "Believe me one day I will."

He spared her one last glance as he ducked out of the room, and Elsa watched him leave before she bounded over to Scott with a grin. "I saw you pick that up." She said matter of factly.

"Yeah, so did Mrs Finch and she didn't try to stop me." Scott sighed.

"Don't take her so seriously, you're smarter than that Scott McCall. And who cares if you didn't do the reading? I think the night we had last night is more than enough reason not to pick up an AP bio text book don't you?" As the pair walked down the hall a handful of nosy students listened in on their conversation, one student in particular caught only the last sentence and offered Scott a high-five as he walked past him. "Oh dream on Greenberg, you, I and everyone else in this school know you've never got past first base." A couple of students sniggered and Scott smirked, a smirk which turned to a laugh when Greenberg slowly lowered his hand from the air and scurried off down the hallway.

"I always forget you two dated."

"Believe me I try to as well. Him and all the other disastrous relationships I've had."

"You'll find the right person someday."

Elsa smiled up at him as the pair entered the library. "I hope so."

They walked silently side by side up the staircase at the far end of the room, making their way up to one of the balconies that encircled the library, Kira had run ahead to secure them a table, one that was much more secluded and where it was less likely that anyone would over hear what they were talking about. Elsa placed her backpack down on the floor when they got there, pulling out the chair opposite Kira's and taking a seat. The kitsune had already gathered a whole pile of books on mythology, folklore and the supernatural and she smiled at the face Elsa pulled at the sight of it.

"It's a lot huh?" The brunette mused and Elsa nodded in agreement pulling open the nearest book to her and getting stuck in.

She didn't know how long they'd been sitting there reading and taking notes, but Scott's voice dragged her out of the trancelike state she'd falling into, looking up she blinked her eyes a few times waiting for them to adjust to looking at something that wasn't simply black text on paper. "Did you get in to see Lydia?" Scott had asked Stiles who'd bounded up the stairs two at a time, Malia not far behind him.

Stiles shook his head. "No, I tried using my free period but she's still in the ICU and no one outside family is allowed in."

"We did get one thing." Malia announced triumphantly, placing a large and incredibly old looking book down onto the table. Elsa twisted in her seat, turning her head so that she wasn't reading the title upside down. ' _Beastiary_ ' she sounded the words out in her head, she'd heard Shane talking about one of these books a few days ago – apparently her brunette best friend had spent the majority of the night Elsa had first told her everything learning as much as she could from google.

"Anything in here about half werewolves half kanimas?" Kira asked her tone somewhere halfway between joking and serious – she, just like Elsa, was growing tired of trolling through a seemingly endless amount of pages in old books, whilst simultaneously getting absolutely no closer to any answers.

"Chimera." Scott muttered quietly, more to himself than to anyone else. Though when he sensed all pairs of eyes on him he straightened up and explained himself. "It' a creature made of incongruous parts. And if Liam said he found two burial sites then it means that Tracy is not the only one."

Everyone around the table glanced at one another before turning their attention back to Scott. "Who's the second chimera?" Kira asked the very question they were all thinking.

"…and why do they bury them?" Elsa asked.

"Deaton thinks it's part of their process."

Malia swallowed hard. "The people in the masks."

Stiles tapped his fingers rhythmically against the back of the chair he was standing behind. "So if what Deaton said is right, then these chimeras are just normal people who have been made into something supernatural right?"

"Right." Scott agreed.

"So the second chimera would be someone who until quite recently didn't display any supernatural abilities right?"

"…right." Scott's voice was beginning to sound slightly less positive with each word that fell from Stiles' lips.

"Well I've got a pretty good idea who the next person we're looking for it then." One of Stiles' hands scratched at the back of his head whilst the other waved in the air towards Elsa.

Her mouth fell open in shock and Elsa scoffed. "What me? You think I am one of those masked freaks' Frankensteins?"

"Well how else do you explain spouting fire powers out of nowhere?" Stiles asked, sarcasm lacing his tones. "Climbed out of any holes recently Kirsch?"

* * *

 **A/N: Here I was thinking full time employment would mean less frequent updates...I guess working all day has motivated me to use my free time for something more productive & I am so glad because I am absolutely loving writing Elsa and this fic at the moment! As usual I really hope you enjoyed the chapter and if you did then faves/follows/reviews would be greatly appreciated. From Ashes is two reviews away from 100 and I've never been so excited for anything in my entire life! As always if you'd like to see any Elsa edits then head over to my blog on tumblr (lydamartin) and if you'd like to tag either me or Elsa in anything on tumblr then please use the tag 'Elsa Kirsch' because I check that most days. Again I really hope you enjoyed the chapter, let me know what you think and thank you for your continued support! **


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